God Help the Outcasts
by Frisky Wallabee
Summary: [COMPLETE]David's having bizarre dreams and newsboys all over New York are going missing and turning up dead. Are the two, in any way, linked? Possibly slash in later chapters. Rated for character death.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Newsies. I wish I did because that'd be pretty sweet, but I don't. They belong to Disney. Actually, give or take a few years, I believe that in ten years time, Disney will in fact rule the world. It certainly rules my life.

--

"God help the outcasts."

David awoke with those words on his lips. He still lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling of his apartment, head swimming. The sun had wrenched him from the folds of a nightmare and he had to clamp down hard on his lip to be sure that he was awake.

"What's that, David?"

He rolled onto his stomach. A pair of curious, brown eyes stared back at him. Les's face was screwed up in confusion. Understandably so. David often talked in his sleep, he had been told, but it was usually incoherent mumbles. Nothing that was even near a full sentence.

"It's nothing," he told him. "Just a song Medda sang last night. It's stuck in my head."

His younger brother heaved a sigh and gave an emphatic pout before furrowing his face up in irritation.

"How come I never get to go with you guys to Irving Hall no more?"

"Because we go late," David explained in a placating voice, grateful for the subject change. "And it's 'anymore' not 'no more.'"

Les's frown didn't go away and David heaved a sigh, rubbing his forehead tiredly.

"Go get ready. I want to eat breakfast before the circulation bell rings."

Still frowning, Les peeled himself from the bed they had to share. Their room had but two beds and it seemed utterly improper for David to have to sleep with Sarah. He glanced over to see his sister's bed vacant. She was probably already gone to work or helping his mother cook breakfast. How hard could it be to reheat last night's soup?

David lay back on his bed and rubbed his forehead again, unable to use trivial thoughts to chase the remnants of the nightmare away. The faces peering from the darkness, masks of twisted pain. Bloated and purpling, eyes bugged. Silks scarves bound at their throats. He squeezed his eyes shut and uttered a small groan.

"David." Sarah appeared at the doorway. "Why aren't you up?"

"I am," he replied. "Just stretching."

She disappeared and David willed himself from bed. As he dressed, he tried to push the nightmare away but there it was, pressing into his mouth and eyes, imprinting itself on his mind. It was sure to haunt him for the rest of the day. He dressed halfheartedly, only pulling pants on over his longjohns and securing them with suspenders. He knew that he should pull his threadbare blue shirt back up from the window where he had left it the night before but his mind was elsewhere and he found himself just simply tugging his boots on instead.

He walked into the kitchen to see his family seated around the table, the morning sunlight lightly dusting them with an almost angelic light. It was a common scene: his father, arm still wounded, chatted with Sarah as she set the bowls down and his mother found her seat next to him. Les was kicking his legs exuberantly back and forth, one hand wrapped around his spoon to drop the soup into his mouth and the other clenching his sword that rested on the table.

"Good morning, David," his mother emerged from the family setting to address him. "Sarah got you a bowl."

Even though he was ravenous, his stomach clenched and he knew that trying to eat would only prove futile. Instead, he shook his head.

"No thanks, mama. We're going to be last in line as it is."

Les glanced up from his bowl, visibly confused. Still, he jumped down from the chair and skittered over to where David was.

"Well," Esther said, wiping her hands on her apron. "You make sure you eat lunch, David."

"Yes, mama."

But he knew that he wouldn't.

--

When David arrived at the World building, he was surprised to see that no one was in line. They were nervously milling about the gate; no one was at the desk. The stench of tobacco hung in the air and David nearly had to shut his eyes. Most of the boys were smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, puffing away in agitation, passing the hastily rolled smokes around so each could have a puff. Racetrack chewed voraciously on an unlit cigar, his pale hand gripping it tightly in his thumb and forefinger.

Reflexively, he clutched Les to his side. The younger boy wriggled under the pressure of his arm in an effort to break free.

"What's going on?" David asked the moment he reached them.

Over two dozen, milky white faces glanced up at him, faces in mournful expressions. That was when David noticed something odd. Someone was missing. A rather large someone, due to how small everyone looked without their presence.

"Snoddy went missin'." Jack spat onto the ground.

David cringed back from the saliva as though it were poison. Les glanced around in confusion and he tightened his hold, hoping that it came across reassuringly.

"Missing?" he rolled the word around in his mouth, feeling anxiety mount. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that Snoddy came wit' us to Irving Hall last night," Jack snapped, his usually handsome face looking haggard and sallow. "And he never came back."

David remembered sitting next to the young man during the show, talking to him. Snoddy was a boy of few words, constantly wiping his nose with his sleeve. David couldn't remember what they spoke about—Snoddy spoke nearly pure Irish and disjointed English in an accent so heavy you could almost touch it—but he remembered his eyes. Haunting, green eyes that seemed to stare right though him.

"'E was my best friend," a newsboy David knew by sight but not by name piped up from the back. He pulled tiredly on his bowler hat and gave a sigh.

If he was in a more lucid state of mind, not haunted by unexplainable nightmares or on edge from a sudden disappearance, he'd wonder why the boy was best friends with someone who could barely speak English.

"You boys buyin'?" the elderly man, Weasel's replacement whose name David had yet to catch, called down to them from his booth.

"We gotta sell, Jack," Race said, still rolling his cigar between his lips as he spoke, garbling his speech.

The other boys looked down to Jack, their leader. They always went to him for guidance. Jack would know what to do. Jack always knew what to do. David felt a small glimmer of hope as his best friend drew on a contemplative face. His brows knit together and his hands worked slowly, the grime falling into lines on them as they rubbed together.

Blink handed him the cigarette but Jack didn't take it. Instead, the blonde inserted it back into his wide mouth and was able to take a puff before Skittery seized it for himself.

"Jack?" Mush asked nervously. He was kneading a fist into his pants, the loose strings dangling from the hems over his knees.

Finally, he stood. The other boys glanced up, their dirt-streaked, frightened faces glimmering with hope. David couldn't help but stare. The effect Jack had on his boys was amazing to watch sometimes.

"Alright," he announced. "It's simple. We sell but we keep in groups and stick to our side. No goin' nowheres by yourselves and keep at least two people with ya at all times."

Race opened his mouth to protest, one hand still gripping the cigar.

"Not a word, Race," Jack commanded firmly. "No one goes on their own."

The other boys smiled slightly, elbowing each other happily and stamping out the cigarettes.

Now reassured, the others started to file into a line, Les among them. Soon, only David's closer friends remained.

"Jack." Skittery eyed him with suspicion. "You know something you ain't tellin' us. Or least them others."

David was surprised at the seriousness of that comment. He knew Skittery to be a downer, always thinking that a dark cloud was looming on the horizon, but he hadn't known him to be so intuitive.

"Yeah," Blink agreed, his good eye suddenly wide. "Even Mush coulda come up with that idea without takin' so much time."

Mush nodded his curly head in concurrence. "Yeah, Jack. You…hey!"

He whipped around to give Blink a glare and slapped him in the back of his blonde head. Jack looked about to answer but then looked up. Their eyes met and held and David knew that Skittery's insinuations were true; Jack was hiding something. Even worse.

Jack was scared.

"Dave." He broke the contact, their moment over. "Come over here. This concerns ya too."

He neared them and squatted down near Mush. The other boy gave him his usual smile, that happy ray of sunshine on his taupe-colored face, and threw a friendly arm around his shoulders and patting his chest with his free hand.

"So what gives, Cowboy?" Race asked, leaning in, his sharp, pale face furrowed in mingled excitement and fear.

Jack fiddled with his bandana, visibly nervous. David had never seen him so anxious, fidgety.

"It ain't just a disappearance," he said in a low voice. "Ain't no way some fella's gonna knife Snoddy on the street for no reason. He knew he was a newsie. I heard things last night at Irving Hall, from Brooklyn, Harlem, the Bronx. Newsies everywhere is goin' missin'. It's scarin' the other leaders. Even Spot's nervous."

David scoffed. He couldn't help it. The sight of Spot Conlon being nervous was none that he never thought he'd see. The others gave him reprimanding looks and he kept his silence.

"Spot likes to be in control, Davey," Jack explained. "When his own boys go missin', it means he ain't got the hold he had no more. Even the twins is scared."

Race balked. "The twins? Wart's always scared."

"Yeah, but so was Jester and he ain't never scared."

David had no idea who they were talking about but pretended that he did. He assumed that the twins were leaders from somewhere else in New York.

"So what're we gonna do?" Skittery asked. "You think some guy's going around New York, killing newsboys."

"Or just takin' them." Mush's eyes had gone wide. "You don't think they're dead, do ya?"

"'Course not." Blink absently patted his friend's arm. "They're fine."

Jack shrugged. "Don't know what to think. But we're in this together. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go to the other leaders and have talk about a…what's it called, Davey?"

"An alliance?" he offered.

"Yeah, an alliance. We watch each other's backs."

The others nodded their agreement and David felt the same rush he had felt once he had gotten into the strike, going around shaking hands and smiling and talking to Denton. But this was different. More than just pride and a tenth of a cent were on the line. They could die.

"Davey, get Les to go with Boots and Snipes and Tumbler. Pie'll watch them."

Skittery looked slightly troubled or, rather, more troubled than he usually did.

"Pie'll be fine with the little ones, Skits," Race said. "You're with us."

He shrugged. "Fine. I don't care about the kids. No way."

Jack and Race shared a brief, bemused look.

"Let's go."

Mush screwed up his face. "What about our papes?"

Jack heaved a sigh and rushed his hands through his unwashed hair. "We'll sell the afternoon edition to have enough for a stay tonight."

With that decided, the boys stood. As they left, David caught Jack staring at the boys still in line. He may have been seeing things but he thought that he saw Jack give the sign of the cross before they left.

--

They walked to the Bronx first. It seemed so dirty and cold but David had to say that it was just a trick of his mind. He remembered the cold, filthy streets in his dream. Impossible cold. Seeping into his skin, his hair, his clothes. Everything.

He spotted a group of younger children playing in the street. Their feet were bare and covered in a thick layer of grime, their faces set in grim determination as they shadowboxed and held swordfights. Most were hatless and vestless and their faces were squirrelly and streaked with soot.

"Jacky-boy and his merry band of warriors!" a jolly voice called in a Cockney accent. "Eee-hee-hee-hee-hee!"

The laugh was shrill and high. It reminded David of an animal he had read about in a pamphlet advertising a rich man safari to Africa. A furry, spotted animal with a long neck and a dog's head with a horse's mane and spots on its fur. He remembered the description of its laugh, a mocking bark sound that it made.

"Hey, Jester, what's the good word?" Race replied in mock joviality.

David then noticed the two boys seated on the cracked steps leading to an apartment building. They were of similar height and carriage, tall and lean but also carrying with them a slight bulk. One boy wore longjohns and pants and suspenders similar to what David and Skittery wore but a battered top hat that had maybe once been black was tilted coquettishly on his nest of blonde curls. A scrap of fabric was tied around his head under it. Old white gloves, rich man's gloves with the three ribs on the back, were on his hands, the fingers missing.

"Nothing doin', Racetrack." He grinned to reveal a chipped front tooth.

The second boy was very nearly identical in looks save for a dusting of tawny freckles on the bridge of his upturned nose. He was dressed in a far more normal manner, hat and vest included, and his face held a worried expression.

"Hey!" the boy in the top hat who Race had called Jester pointed at him. "You're that other strike leader. Daniel!"

"David," he corrected. "Yes."

The boy jumped from the steps and clasped David's hand in his own, the dust from the gloves clinging to his skin after he had removed his hands.

"Welcome to the Bronx, then, David."

The other boy got off of the steps cautiously and stood at his side.

"That's Wart and Jester," Jack said. "The Bronx leaders."

David felt that it was safe to assume that these two were the "twins" Jack had referred to earlier.

"We need 't talk about the boys disappearin'," Mush stated.

Blink seized his arm and drew a hand over his mouth. Mush looked around in confusion and his shoulders slumped. He mumbled something behind the muffle of Blink's hand that sounded like 'sorry.'

Jester flapped a hand airily. "No need, Kid. None of the boys can hear us. When you play, the world just seems to disappear."

His blue eyes shone nostalgically as though he were pining for the days of his youth. Then his face grew grave.

"Heck and Star went missin' last night. Left Irving early and we ain't heard from 'em since."

Wart bit his lip. "I think they was murdered."

Jester elbowed him. "They're probably off with some girls. Heck and Star is skirt chasers if I ever saw 'em."

He rounded on him. His mouth was set in a thin line.

"Oh, just like Lion disappeared last week?" he hissed.

Jack held up peacemaking hands.

"Boys," he said in a soothing voice. "Listen. One of ours went missin' too. Snoddy."

"Ah, Big'n'Quiet?" Jester asked. "Liked that fella. Listened real good."

"Now he's dead too," Wart moaned.

"Will ya be quiet?"

Skittery frowned. "He's right. They're probably dead. Your boy, Lion, was it? He'd be back by now."

David shook his head; now there were two Skitterys in the world. However, he could sense something. Skittery was pessimistic and Wart just appeared scared and worried.

"So that's why we need the Bronx to watch our backs and we'll watch yours," Jack explained.

The boys exchanged a look. Jester was the first to speak.

"Agreed, Cowboy. But we come whitcha to Brooklyn."

"Why?" David asked.

He grinned, showing that chip once more. "'Cause I wanna see Spot Conlon sweat."

--

Spot had never felt bile rise in his throat. He had never spewed it over the side of the dock and into the churning, brown waters below. He had never had his stomach rock from revulsion at the simple sight of something. He spit another, acidy splash into the water.

He had never seen a dead body before either.

The boy had been dead for awhile, it appeared. His sandy hair was smeared with blood as though he had been beaten. His skin was yellowed and his eyes bulged from their sockets: a dull, dead brown. His face was purpled and bloated, his features indiscernible. Around his neck was a knotted silk chord and a mass of yellow-violet bruises.

The boy had been hanging from the tower in which Spot reigned that morning. He smelled like rot but the sight alone was what made him violently regurgitate the bile from his stomach. His clothes were quite similar to Spot's but all in shades of tan and his feet were bare. This was not a rich boy.

Then he saw the nick in the lad's ear. A small semi-circle cut out from his right ear. He knew of only one person to have that. It was Lion, a Bronx boy. He had shot craps with him several times. Not the brightest but good at heart and Spot had found him easy to convince to hand over more money than he owed for a bad roll.

"Well, my brother," an accented voice reached him, wavering in fear. "You've now seen Spot Conlon sweat."

Spot glanced up to see the throng of boys standing on the docks. David, Mush, Skittery, Race, Jack and the twins. He wiped his mouth.

"Eat somethin' bad?" Blink forced a smile onto his face but it didn't even reach his eyes—patch included.

Spot pointed above them. Their eyes followed and within moments, David and Mush were joining him on the planks, vomiting into the water.

"Faith and Begora." Jack made the sign of the cross.

"_Alla miniera del dio_." Race repeated the gesture.

"Lion!" Wart called, his voice sounding wounded.

Blink nudged Skittery nervously. "What does this mean?"

Jack rounded on him and looked on, stony-faced.

"It means, Kid." He took a deep breath. "It means…we got a killer after us."

--

**Author's notes: **Suspense! I got inspiration and it wouldn't quit. What can I say? Knowing me, despite the fact that I'm writing a gen fic for once, there will be some romance of the slashtacular variety, I'm just not entirely sure with whom. Also, for those who read DAMY, the twins may seem familiar (just older and canonized).


	2. Chapter 2

Snakes, David thought when he saw the leader of Harlem. Snakes.

He was a massive boy, steel cable muscles rippling under ebony flesh. His hair was wiry and twisted into cables. He was sitting in a wooden, cane-back chair with one leg thrown over the arm. It gave David the appearance of a king sitting on a throne. When he rose to greet Jack, he didn't carry that certain arrogance that Spot had when he did so. The casual flippancy that he had had when he jumped down and did the spit-shake in one, fluid motion.

He regarded Jack with cautious reverence, spitting lightly into his palm before clasping Jack's hand.

"Lion's dead," Wart said in a hurried voice. "Murdered."

The boy stroked his chin with one hand.

"That is quite the shame." His voice boomed over them, carrying a cadence that David couldn't quite place. "Lion was a good boy. Never ran his mouth."

The other boys around him nodded.

"Yeah," Jack said. "And more are missin'. Including one of my own. You got any problems, Val?"

"No. None of my boys have gone missing," he stated. "That I know of."

Jack leaned in, his face set in a grimace. David felt his heart accelerate, wanting to see Jack in action. Strangely, this was accompanied by a strange, groin-y sensation that shuddered up his body.

"Well, Val," his voice was razor sharp and sent chills up David's spine. "You tell us if you see anything."

Spot smirked behind him as though he hadn't spent the morning being violently sick off of the docks. David stood up next to Jack as though he were his second-in-command. True, he was, but he felt like a fraud. He didn't know any of these boys. Spot or Race should have been up there with Jack, not him. The others were hanging back save for Spot and twins. Being leaders seemed to have certain rights and privileges.

Dragging himself back to reality, David noticed a kind of mental contest going on between the Harlem leader and Jack. Though physically smaller, Jack seemed to tower over him. His gaze was sharp and slightly terrifying. David knew that Jack could be incredibly intense but this was starting to frighten him a little.

"I…will tell you, Cowboy," the youth said finally, his voice reverberating against the walls of the cramped lodging house.

Jack smiled a smile that frightened David. A curly, creepy smile that made his entire body shudder and made that groin-y feeling return once more.

"Glad that we could come to an agreement, Val."

Jack stood and motioned for the others to follow him out the door.

"What was that about?" Race asked the moment they were back onto the street.

The sun pressed down as though it were reprimanding them for something. It was beating hard, trying to milk the last days of summer before autumn took over the city it seemed.

Jack grinned. "Valentine's got some explainin' to do is all."

"You mean you think he's hidin' something?" Spot queried, cocking a brow masterfully.

"No, I mean that I _know_ he's hidin' something."

There was an uneasy silence for a moment with everyone just standing there, not sure of what to say. Blink started walking a little way down the street, a smile on his face. Blink had been smiling since they had reached Harlem, his thin face split by a huge grin and a certain, youthful exuberance held in his good eye, which sparkled like the sapphires David had seen in books.

"Well." Jester broke the silence and held up his hands. "Wart'n'I need 't be 'eadin' back. We got our remainin' boys 't deal with."

Wart nodded, clutching his cap in one hand and wringing it with the other. They both exchanged a spit-shake with Jack before heading on their ways.

The remaining group walked towards the distribution center, Spot included. He seemed edgy about going back over the bridge to Brooklyn and, quite frankly, David couldn't blame him. Spot was tough, but looking into his eyes, there was a certain darkness there. Even Spot couldn't pretend that what happened to him wasn't traumatizing. Unfortunately, David had a feeling that he'd respond to that feeling by being more aggressive. Dangerously aggressive. Aggressive enough to searching after the killer on his own.

"Listen," Jack said. "Don't tell no one 'bout Lion. They'll find out but it wont' be from us. Got it?"

He was looking directly at Mush.

"What?" he squeaked and looked around, confused.

"You don't got the best luck with keepin' your mouth shut," Skittery explained.

He pouted and crossed his arms but Blink squeezed his shoulder and he loosened up as they continued their walk.

"My mama was from here," Mush said after a while, gesturing back to Harlem. "I like it."

No one replied and they continued to walk in silence. It was the silence that got to David. He always felt the need to fill empty space with words, keep the air buzzing and warm with sounds and words and laughter. But now even Race was keeping quiet.

"Jack…" Skittery said finally. "Does this mean that…that Snoddy's dead?"

He put a smile on his face. "Nah. Lion was missin' a whole week afore he ended up dangling from Spot's tower. Snoddy's somewhere. We just gotta find 'im."

His words echoed hollowly off of the buildings. Even though they were amongst masses of people trundling around New York, the city felt empty. David surveyed the faces of the others. Everyone's was locked in a grim, stoic-faced mask. No one believed Jack. He glanced further down the line. Not even Mush.

--

Jack Kelly always prided himself upon being smart. Not just smart but able to think on his feet. He was one of the few newsboys who could read and read well. He was good at coming up with things at the spur of the moment. Like his name.

He hadn't known where he pulled Jack Kelly from the night he made it up. He had recently escaped from the refuge and Snyder, not wanting to lose the walking money, would have been after him. He signed the ledger at the lodging house that night for the first time. But Frankie Sullivan had to be put to rest. He thought of names. The Kelly part was easy. That was his mother's name: Patricia Kelly. Watch her sing, watch her dance, watch her cough herself to death.

He remembered watching, at the tender age of four, his mother singing on stage and fall into a fit of coughing. It was a normal occurrence, it was winter after all, but then the drop of red hit the boards of the stage.

Jack he pulled simply from the air as it was the first name he thought of. Thus, Francis Sullivan ceased to exist and Jack Kelly was born.

That was why he was nervous. He didn't know what to do, didn't know who the killer would strike next, _if_ he'd strike next. Jack skipped out on the afternoon edition and instead took up to David's fire escape. David didn't know it but he often went there to think. Sometimes Sarah would come out and join him but usually he was on his own. Although, he sometimes wanted David to pull aside the curtains and find him there. Stare down upon him with his blue eyes seeing right through him, the curtains locked in one, pale hand. Hands Jack sometimes felt the strong urge to grab and hold onto for eternity.

But David was out selling and only Esther was home, tidying and singing to herself in Polish. So Jack sat on the black metal, thinking.

He thought of the strike first, and Denton. He had always felt a latent jealousy of that man with his bowties and bowler hats. He was ridiculous to behold but Jack felt in awe of him. But not just that, but the bare-faced admiration David had for him. Admiration that he didn't even have for Jack. The way David's eyes shone when he put an arm on Denton's back and said 'he's going to be an ace war correspondent' and how he always seemed to get dreamy-eyed when he talked about him.

David. All of his thoughts turned to David. Jack willed them away and concentrated. A boy was dead. Dead. Killed. There was no Denton now. No one to hear their story, no one to write words and help them. They were on their own. The papers wouldn't cover a story about some dead street rats. That's what they were: street rats, street trash, urchins. They didn't mean nothing to nobody.

Except each other.

"'Lot of damn good that does," he said sourly to no one in particular.

How could they even stick together when they lied to each other? He thought of Valentine, concealing things from him. He didn't like it. No one hid things from Jack Kelly. Especially not the large, silent leader of Harlem.

Jack rested his forehead on his knees, feeling useless. And he was violating his own rule. Despite Esther's presence, he was alone. Alone and vulnerable. Would he be taken in broad daylight?

"I thought I'd find you here."

Jack glanced up to see David standing on the fire escape. The knee of his brown pants had torn during the climb and the flesh shown was white but not the sick-looking white that his mother was. Looking at David's white knee was somehow better than a peepshow. It was white as bone and strangely beautiful. Like a statue. There should be a statue named David.

"You knew I come here?" he asked, confused.

David smiled and sat down across from him. "Sarah told me."

"Your mother's in there."

"I know. I don't want her to know I'm here."

Jack felt something conspiratorial all of a sudden, with that last comment. That he didn't want his mother to know that they were out there, talking. Perhaps he was blowing it out of proportion, that David just meant that he didn't want his mother to know about the murders. Still, a shiver went up his spine.

"You're worried, Jack."

The statement sent him reeling.

"What'd ya mean?"

"You're worried because you can't see it. You can't fight it with your fists."

His mouth went dry and he lowered his head sheepishly. David could see right through him. He was right. Unless faced with the killer, he couldn't find it. Physical fights, that was what he was good at, not this mind-bending malarkey that'd end up with him in the nuthouse, getting electro-shocked back into normality.

"Dave, how do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"See through everything."

He shrugged. "I just do."

Jack smirked at him and David gave a little smile back. It wasn't much of a smile, just a little half cock of his mouth but it sent those shivers back up Jack's spine. It wasn't smirk and it was somehow sad.

"Jack…" he stared up at the maze of fire escapes above them and let his name dangle for a while, not chasing it with the rest of a sentence. "…Will we find Snoddy?"

There was no forced cheerfulness this time. Jack reached out and placed a hand on David's knee, feeling the sweet warmth radiating from it.

"No," he said simply, voice catching only slightly. "We won't."

--

"Snitch, stop suckin' your thumb!"

Sheepishly, he pulled the offending digit from his mouth but, within seconds, it found its way back there. He frowned over it. He thought he had gotten over the habit. During the daylight at the very least. But he was nervous and when he was nervous, he sucked his thumb.

"Snitch, they ain't gonna get us in the middle of the day," Itey assured him with a smile.

Snitch was usually calmed by Itey's smile. Crooked teeth and a little tilted on his dirt-streaked face, it was enough to cheer him up when his skies were gray. But today, his body was racing ahead of him and he couldn't even concentrate.

"I don't wanna sell," he said after a moment. "I got enough for a stay tonight and we got some bread stored up, right Ite?"

Itey nodded slowly, his matted curls flopping onto his forehead as he did so.

"Good idea," Mush said quickly.

He and Blink had joined them for sale that afternoon. They had shown up at the distribution center, their smiles wide enough to split their faces. Strange smiles that didn't meet their eyes—or eye, in Blink's case. It had unnerved the both of them since Mush and Blink smiled plenty of real smiles all of the time.

"Let's go swim," Mush suggested.

Blink elbowed him discreetly and he snapped as if to attention. Snitch dutifully corked his mouth with his thumb once more and glanced over at Itey. He was standing with his hip cocked out to the side, his papes under his arm and one thick eyebrow quirked.

"But not in Brooklyn," he added hastily.

"Don't want Spot's musclemen to decide to soak us," Blink chimed in, his voice dripping with fake sincerity.

"What's goin' on here?" Itey asked.

"Nothin'."

They spoke as one person and it unnerved Snitch slightly. Mush and Blink were most definitely acting peculiar.

"Come on," Mush chirped.

They started off at a brisk pace. Itey stared after them, his face furrowed in confusion. Snitch unplugged his mouth and wiped his thumb on the side of his pants.

"I guess we should go with 'em?"

Itey shrugged. "I guess."

--

Racetrack Higgins was not a boy of simple thoughts. If you saw him, you'd think nothing more of him than an immigrant boy with a wise mouth and thoughts of horses in the head. But he was complex.

Skittery knew that after Lion died. They had split apart from the others, walking slowly down the street. Skittery shuffled his feet to keep in time with Race who was far shorter than he.

Both boys had remained silent since their return to the island and to the afternoon edition. They sold together by default and had yet to speak. For Race, it was something that would usually be incredibly difficult. He couldn't keep his mouth shut for any amount of money. But, with what just happened, he found silence to be easy. Easy, but not comforting.

"What are we going to do?" finally, Race broke the silence that had settled over the two of them.

Skittery shrugged his shoulders. He couldn't help but feel massive around Race. He remembered something Mush told him ages ago. About dreams. Giants, he had said. He had dreams about giants. Huge, looming, dripping with waffled skin and hatred. Mush had told him that it wasn't that he was afraid of being attacked by the giants. He was afraid of being bloated and angry and huge. That he was one of them. It had been his response when Skittery asked him why he sometimes woke up biting himself.

Skittery felt like one of the dream giants standing with Race. It was strange. He didn't feel that way when he was with the children and they were even smaller than he was. The children soothed him. Made him less angry at everyone.

"I don't know," he answered after a long pause. "Jack should know."

"Jack always knows."

They walked on in silence, not speaking. Neither bothered to push their papes. Their hearts weren't in it. Skittery kept picturing Lion, the Bronx boy. Dangling from Spot's tower. It made him sick just remembering it.

"Race…I don't think Jack knows what to do."

There was a long pause. Race stared awkwardly into a storefront, his narrow brown eyes fixated on the pane of glass with the gold lettering. His small shoulders were bunched up as though he were carrying a heavy load.

"Yeah," he said after a minute. "Jack ain't gotta clue."

Skittery scuffed his boot on the ground before answering. "Can't blame him."

"Me either."

--

There was something beautiful about them that he wanted to possess. He had read about them in the paper. Child heroes. They were beautiful. There was one in particular that caught his interest. One that he wanted to take especially for his own.

He unfolded the picture he tore from the paper. It was well worn and tearing slightly at the creases. The boys staring out in various forms of disarray. One looked in pain, one was dangling sideways, but most just looked confused. Bald surprise written on their dirty faces. Except for one. The dangerously gorgeous one in the center with the big smile on his face. He licked his lips.

He put it back into his pocket and hid near the window. A small group of four that he recognized from the picture was heading towards the docks to swim. Just shy of the bridge. Over which he dangled the body of the poor boy who had the misfortune to cross his path.

He watched them with keen interest as they took their clothes off. His breath caught in his throat as one let his longjohns drop. He had never noticed how exquisite he was in the photo. All he had seen was a confused face. His cheekbones were half-shells on his face, taupe skin stretched over them deliciously. His lips were full and plush like those of angels in Renaissance paintings he had seen in books. His nose was upturned and his eyes…his eyes. Even from there, he could see the sweetness and soulfulness behind them. The riot of tight curls on his head that he wanted to tug.

He watched him run towards the water. The arch of his biceps, the clench of his thigh. His round, firm buttocks. He nearly swooned. He gripped the wooden sill of his window so hard that paint came off in his hands.

The other boys were less exquisite but fine in their own ways. The blonde especially. His wide mouth was stretched into a grin as he swam in tight little circles. A strange thing, that mouth. It was wide and almost clownish but it seemed right on his narrow face. The Italian-looking boy had those beautiful curls and the boy with the wavy hair had large front teeth that made him look somehow innocent.

He gripped the curtain. The first boy, the one with the exquisite body, was to be his next. He would do more than just come up behind him on the street and kill him. He wanted him like he wanted the grinning boy.

He wanted to have him.


	3. Chapter 3

Mush sat up and put his hands in his face. The room was buzzing and blue, a bright and blinding blue but somehow still dark. Over his head and behind him, nine swords were lined up. He felt incredibly numb. His feet were tingling in that way that they often did in the dreams.

Before he became a giant.

He awoke in a cold sweat. His body trembled slightly and his hair was matted to his head. Someone was shaking him.

"Mush!" Blink crouched next to him like a cat or some kind of gargoyle. His one eye flashed in the night, as blue as the room with the swords.

He wiped his brow and shuddered. "What is it?"

Blink leaned in so his mouth was right on his ear.

"I thought I heard somethin' out the window. Left side."

Ever since Blink lost his eye, he said that he could hear better on the left side than his right. No one believed him since Blink lied like breathing.

Mush shuddered again. He felt his muscles begin to tense up but it wasn't attributed to whatever lurked on the streets below them. It was the dream. He almost wanted the dreams of being a giant. Nothing was scarier than that blue room, he figured. Nothing could be scarier.

"…go find 'em."

He snapped his head up. Blink had been talking the entire time.

"What?" he asked in a small, quiet voice.

He heard a sigh heaved in the gloom. He knew the sigh. He had heard it too many times since he became a newsie. The "oh, right, we're talking to Mush. Mush can't pay attention. Mush is an idiot" sigh. Maybe he deserved it. He wasn't smart and he couldn't read but he could lie with the others and think enough on his feet to pull something from the mess of words that made no sense. Still, he heard the others calling him a 'feeb' behind his back when they thought he wasn't listening.

"Mush!" Blink shook him furiously. "Listen."

"What?"

"We need to follow him. He won't attack us both."

If the dream hadn't shaken him, Mush would have laughed. And people called _him_ dumb.

"Blink," he whispered. "We can't do that. It's dangerous."

Blink let out a _whoosh_ of air.

"I don't know what to do," he whispered. "I'm scared, Mush."

Mush reached out and hugged him. Blink tensed slightly but then relaxed. He put his arms around him and squeezed. They didn't know how long they stayed like that but Mush began to drift off again.

Somehow, with the protection of Blink's arms around his shoulders, he didn't dream of giants.

Or the blue room.

--

Across the city, David slept fitfully. He kicked the blankets in his sleep. Les was so disturbed by his brother's behavior that he rose and, quiet as a ghost, slipped into his parents' bed.

David clutched his pillow and moaned slightly. He could hear a scraping sound slightly far off but he was trapped. Faces twisted in agony. A silk chord. Bloated, dead faces peering up at him. A hand clutching his ankle.

David jumped but did not awaken. Rain was pelting down on the impossible cold. A cold so deep he did not know how he'd ever be warm again.

A hand clamped over his mouth.

David let out a strangled scream and shot up in bed. The hand forced him back down. He remembered seeing Lion's body swinging. He was next. He was going to die. But there was so much he hadn't yet done. He had never been to bed, never taken off his clothes for anyone, never—

"Davey, shh!"

Warm relief spread through him as the voice reached his ears. The cadence dripped over his ears like honey and into his mouth, soothing him. Soon, though, it was replaced by irritation.

"Jack!" he hissed, his words muffled on his hand.

Jack removed his hand and brought a finger to his lips. With his head, he gestured to Sarah who still slept peacefully in her own bed. David crossed his arms over his chest. Through the fabric of his longjohns, he could feel his heart still beating frantically.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I couldn't sleep," he whispered back. "So I came here."

His heart began to accelerate once more. But neither for himself nor the remnants of his dream but for Jack.

"Do you know what could have happened?" he demanded frantically. "What could have happened to you?"

His face got a harsh look. "I know that, Dave. You don't think that I was thinkin' that the entire time here? But I had to come."

He kicked the twisted sheets from where they had knotted in his legs and stared down at them. Anything to not look at Jack.

"Why?"

"Because you're the only one I could talk to."

David let his arms fall to his sides.

"You're right," he said quietly. "I am scared. I don't know what I can do to save the boys. There's someone out there…waitin' for us. I could feel him when I walked here tonight. Like…"

He reached out and lightly touched Jack's arm. "Like what?"

"Like…I could feel him watching me. Watching us. Laughin'. And I dunno how I knew but I knew."

In the back of his mind, David idly wondered if Jack had the same nightmares as he did. The faces, the chords, the cold. If they could share them. Figure them out.

David let out a sigh and Jack's face furrowed in confusion.

"What?" he asked. A patented, Jack Kelly smile slid onto his face and he lightly rapped the side of David's skull. "What's goin' on in that busy head of yours?"

He drew his knees up to his chest and lightly rested his chin there. He let his eyes lower to a half-mast and let out another sigh.

"I'm just thinking," he said. "About things."

Jack nodded as if he knew and pulled himself so he was lying next to David. He kicked his boots off onto the floor and curled up slightly next to him.

"Jack, what are you doing?" he asked in a rushed whisper.

He yawned a little, his tongue coming out to lightly wet his lips, the saliva glistening in the moonlight. David felt that groin-y feeling again. He shook it off.

"Sleepin'," he mumbled as though he were already halfway there.

Jack looked so much like a little boy at that moment. The moon spilled into the now closed window and hollowed out his cheekbones. It was as though David was seeing him for the first time. His hair wasn't slicked back and shellacked into place. It hung over his face like tawny silk. His lips curled upwards as though he had heard the most delicious joke. His eyes were rather close to his nose, which was rather large compared to his thin, thief's face but it somehow made him more compelling.

"I kick a little," he warned in a hurried whisper, remembering the dreams.

"S'ok." Jack curled further into the sheets.

David let his legs fall back onto the mattress and began to unwind the sheets. As he worked, he wondered how he got them into a knot. Once done, he pulled the covers over both of their bodies and slept.

Soon, his body was rocking side to side with the torment of the dreams.

At one point during the night, Jack rose. He stared at David, his face as screwed up as a newborn's, his fists balled and his legs thrashing. He quieted for a moment and lay there in silent lucidity. His face was blank and the only indication that he was alive was the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest. His body jumped slightly as Jack remembered his own doing when he had dreams where he was falling. His body twitched in his bed just before his dream self hit the ground.

Jack leaned down and kissed his cheek lightly. David fell silent again and Jack felt soothed himself. Calmer than he had been in a long time. He rested his head on his chest and closed his eyes to listen to his heart.

The soothing, _ga-gunk_ sound lulled him back into drowsiness. Jack felt his eyes droop and soon, he was asleep.

--

A group of them walked out of the Lodging House. The moon highlighted on their faces, their bodies still in clothes. The moon shone the brightest off of the hair of one them, making it appear white. It was a pale, golden color. His eyes were hidden behind spectacles. They looked like flat, soulless discs when they caught the light.

He was with two others: a Spanish boy with high cheekbones and dark hair and a gangly, bespectacled boy with a mop of matted, brown curls. He smoothed the picture out from his pocket. He recognized them all. The blonde one was different. He hung sideways in the picture.

A smile furled onto his face. He wanted this one. Not like the perfect boy at the docks or the grinning boy but like the others. He wanted them all the same. He folded the picture back up and placed it back into his jacket pocket. Slowly, he pulled something else out. A chord. Yellow silk. Like the boy's hair. He knotted it loosely to slip it around his neck to tighten and pull until the boy stopped struggling.

The Spanish boy perked his head up as though he saw him. Like the boy on the docks, he was struck by his beauty. Not nearly as much, though. Not enough to dissuade him from his task.

"Go in now," he said in a thick accent. "Hear somethin'."

The brown-haired boy in glasses nodded. "Yeah. It's chilly out here too. Fall soon."

The blonde boy made no motion to leave. He struck a match and lit a cigarette. They had come out to smoke in the fresh outdoors. Silly boys.

"Dutchy, no," the bespectacled boy was still talking. "Forget the smoke. Let's go in."

He tugged on his arm lightly as if to usher him inside. The Spanish one had already retreated. Smart boy.

"I'll only be a minute," he complained. "I wanna smoke."

"You heard Jack! We can't be by ourselves. And we're out at night. This has death written all over it."

The blonde boy, Dutchy it seemed, gave him a small shove.

"You can't even spell 'death', Specs. And stop worryin'. I'll be a minute. Just wait for me on the other side of the door. If somethin' happens, I'll yell."

He retreated into the doorway and he could almost picture him and the Spanish boy with their ears pressed against the door, ready to jump at any sound. Silly boys. Silly, silly boys.

He left darkened stoop he sat on and walked swiftly across the street. The blonde boy meandered near the door, the moon and the orange flicker of his cigarette illuminating his face.

With ease, he slipped the chord over his head and tightened. His eyes bulged and he struggled. His hands grasped the chord as though trying to pull it off. The cigarette fell to the ground and smoldered away. The blonde boy was dead before he could even scream.

Gingerly, he lifted his body over his shoulder. As he left, he stamped out the cigarette.

--

The next morning, David and Jack arrived together at the square. Both had remained silent and cast glances at the side of the street rather than at each other. David had awoken to find Jack's head on his chest. He had felt warm all over. A good warm, a happy warm. And it confused him.

Les bopped along in front of them, slaying dragons or warriors with his wooden sword. If he was wise to their odd behavior, he said nothing of it. Then Les stopped. There was a clatter of wood as the sword fell from his hand and hit the ground.

"Whassa matter, kid?" Jack asked and then he glanced up.

David followed his gaze. A boy with curly red hair was dangling from the gates. From the rope David had seen Jack slide down the first day he met him. A purple silk chord was tied around his throat and the skin was bruised and puffy. His entire body trembled.

All of the boys were looking at the body. David looked down and his eyes met Skittery's. They both had known about Lion and he felt almost in cahoots with him somehow. He noticed the older boy ushering the younger newsboys, Tumbler and Snipeshooter, away from the body. Both of the little boys looked equally sick.

Watching the body, he felt almost responsible and yet a small flickering of pride that he hadn't thrown up this time. Even if his stomach was churning and bile was mounting in his throat.

"Who is he, Jack?" he asked in a low whisper.

"Star," he said mournfully. "One of the Bronx boys that Jester told me had gone missin' when Snoddy did."

David felt the revulsion mount again and he clutched Jack's shoulder for support as he doubled over. He felt Jack's large hand stroke his back. He craned his neck to look at him.

"Thanks," he rasped.

"Nothin' doin'." Jack smiled at him with all of his crooked teeth.

David shakily rose back up and wiped his mouth. Together, they made their way over to the boys.

"He's just flauntin' it, ain't he?" Race spat the moment they reached them. "Showin' that he's got us right where he wants us. Shittin' our trousers."

The majority of the other boys were looking directly at Jack. Always. They turned to him for the answers. David knew that he had known but he also knew that Jack wouldn't let them know that.

"Alright, listen!" he cried suddenly.

The others turned to him. David was alarmed. Under the already accumulated dirt from the walk over from the Lodging House, their faces were waxy and ashen. They were terrified. Counting their days.

"I'll deal wit this," Jack promised. "Me'n'the other leaders. Tonight."

The boys let out small cheers, too shaken to muster much else. Jack gathered his center around him. The only ones he left tapped in. David felt a conspiratorial air hover above them. They knew things that others didn't.

"We're callin' a meetin' of the leaders tonight. You all are comin'," Jack whispered. "You're in this too."

"We skippin' out again on the mornin' edition?" Blink said, somewhat nervously.

Mush looked rather disappointed. "We gotta eat, Jack. I went hungry last night and I don't think I've ever missed a meal."

He tugged on the waistband of his short trousers, the suspenders giving under the fabric of his shirt.

"Look how loose!" he whined.

Race hit him lightly and Skittery actually mustered a chuckle. David had never seen him laugh.

"We gotta," Blink explained.

Mush pouted but David suddenly had a feeling that it was faked. That Mush was simply trying to lighten the mood. He shook the thought off. He was giving him too much credit.

"Yeah," Jack said. "We gotta talk about what we're gonna do. Two kids is dead."

"To be fair," David said in a cold, flat voice he didn't recognize. "We didn't decide on what to do until after the boys from the Bronx went missing."

Their faces looked at him imploringly. David lowered his head. He hadn't known where that came from.

"Dave's right," Jack said after an awkward silence.

"Yeah. Now…" Race stopped and looked around. His eyes landed on the line of boys waiting for their papes.

They were an uneasy line, David noted. They were pacing in place, shifting their weight from one foot to the next. Some of the younger ones were shaking. Others were glancing about quickly and furtively.

"What?" Jack followed his gaze.

"Someone's not there," he said, his voice sounding sadder than ever thought.

From behind him, David heard Skittery take a sharp intake of breath.

"Dutchy," Blink said quietly. "He's not there."

Jack, Race and Mush made the sign of the cross. Skittery mumbled something in Hebrew. David looked at him in surprise, having understood what he had said. Under normal circumstances, he would have asked if he was Jewish as well but he knew full well that this was neither the time nor the place.

"The meetin' needs 't happen," Race said quickly. "Before more go missin'."

The others nodded.

"Let's go," Jack said.

"My family can feed us tonight," David blurted out. He tried to compose himself. "I mean, since we're probably going to get to sell today."

The others smiled gratefully at him and, as they started back towards the Bronx, David felt as if he had done something.

He glanced over his shoulder back at the body named Star. The two, strong-looking men who replaced the DeLanceys were cutting him down, flannels held over their mouths and a look of revulsion and despair in their eyes.

He remembered his dream and couldn't help feeling somehow responsible for it.


	4. Chapter 4

The room was small and smelled like sweat. Loud and angry voices bounced off of the walls and melded together into one, steady roar.

They met under the distribution center with its cobwebs and dust so thick, it gave the floor a cushion. David remembered going down there to print their own paper. The hope that had blossomed there in his chest. That seemed so long ago. Before anyone died. Now the blossom was a flower of anxiety, squeezing his throat shut like a clamp.

The other leaders had brought some of their boys as Jack had. They were crushed onto the steps leading down to the main area. David was among them but he and the others were on the bottom step and not as smashed. Their knees jabbed up over their chests from the uncomfortable positions. Skittery, David noted, with his gangly legs and too long arms, looked especially cramped.

Jack was leaning against the sheet that covered the press, his eyes flicking from boy to boy. Spot scowled next to him, thin arms crossed over his chest. The twins and Valentine the Harlem leader were on the other side. Other leaders David didn't recognize were around them in various stances of authority.

The boys were generally burly, rough-housing boys who had gotten to the top by force rather than intimidation or born leadership as Jack and Spot had. They had the same, steel-cable muscles as Valentine and faces that bore many scraps and scars. Boys you didn't want to cross.

No one spoke.

David really saw no purpose for the meeting. They were going into this blind and deaf. They didn't know who, how or when he was going to strike again so why bother doing anything against it? Two boys were dead and more were missing. None of the boys were saying anything about it but he could feel the air grow pregnant with doom.

A boy from Queens sat behind David, his breath hot and sour on his ear. He turned around to tell him to move but was struck by him. He was alright to look at: Romanian features, olive skin and thick, curly dark hair, but he was holding a deck of cards in one hand covered in torn, olive-green gloves. The cards were different than the ones David had seen the other newsboys playing poker with. They were larger and, when his hand flipped one over, each worn and torn card bore a painted picture. David examined him more. His upper teeth rested on his lower lip and a gold hoop glittered in his ear.

"Want me to read your fate?" he asked, his voice holding mystery and a flute-like lilt to it.

David shook his head, remembering the dreams. "No."

Mush was seated next to him and turned around. His face was set into a grimace and he glared at the boy.

"Gypsy, leave David alone," he said in his little boy's voice.

The boy, Gypsy, said nothing but grinned slightly. His teeth, like most of the boy's, were crooked but there was something almost supernatural about them. Sharp.

"Tan lamb," he told Mush, brandishing the deck with a thief's smile. "What do the Fates hold for you?"

Mush scowled but then a playful smile flitted over his lips. He snatched the top card from the deck. Gypsy's mouth went a little slack but then the grin reappeared.

"What's it say, Lamb?" he asked, using that name again for him.

Mush's smile disappeared and a look of fright passed onto his face.

"N-nothin'," he mumbled. "We should be listenin' to Jack'n'them anyway."

He put the card back but Gypsy lifted it once more, his heavy-lidded, brown eyes scanning it.

"The nine of swords," he said in a low voice. "Past memories never put to rest…"

Mush turned away and rested his chin on his knees.

"Don't mean nothin', Gypsy," he said obstinately. "I just pulled a random one 't irk ya."

Gypsy put the card back and slipped the whole deck into a pouch that dangled from his waist, much like the one Snitch had, David noted, except cloth and woven.

"This doesn't bode well," he said in that lilting voice. "This killer…makes me uneasy."

A boy shoved him from behind. "Go steal a baby, gypsy boy!"

Gypsy whipped his head around and swore fluently at the youth in what David could only guess was Romanian. David turned away and watched the leaders.

Tension shrouded them like a fog. Jaws were clenched, muscles tensed, hands curled into fists, bodies ready to spring. They had no reason to be here, there was nothing to do. He was about to rise and announce this, tell everyone that they should leave. He was about to but the door to the basement opened. Necks craned, expecting the killer or, at the very least, the elderly man who worked in the World distribution center telling them to leave. Instead, there was a man.

"Boys." He tipped his bowler hat.

David turned around to get a better look at him. In some ways, he reminded him of Denton, that air Denton had had when they first met. An open-faced honest air of someone who legitimately cared about them. His eyes were a dull brown and situated over a large nose and shaded by thick, black eyebrows with sprinklings of white in them.

"Who're you?" Jack stepped forward, hackles raised. A fire David had never seen before blazed in his eyes.

He gave a small chuckle and made his way further down the steps. The boys situated there leapt to the side as though he were contaminated. He set both booted feet on the floor and extended a hand to Jack. Jack scowled and didn't take it. Spot gave a victorious chuckle at that.

"I'm Oliver Ashby," he said. David was astounded by his voice: gravelly and deep. It resonated off of the small, cramped walls of the room.

Jack's scowl deepened and he eyed Oliver's outstretched hand like it was something he found on the bottom of his boot.

"Jack Kelly," he said gruffly. "And what do you want?'

He put his hand back at his side and smiled. "Where are my manners? I'm a detective, private eye. I heard about your…predicament."

Spot stepped forward, arms still folded on his chest and his mouth still set in a glower.

"Yeah, and how do we know that, Ashby?" he all but growled, his eyes were completely ice and the look frightened David slightly. "How do we know that you're a _detective_?"

Ashby only smiled and pulled out a badge. It was authentic-looking but David knew the others were skeptical. The cops hadn't helped at all in the strike, in fact, they had helped the Pinkertons and the other hired goons try and break it. But he had said he was private. And he sought them out.

"Badge don't mean nothin'," Spot snapped. "I could 'ave me own badge and I'd still be Thomas Conlon."

Ashby placed it back into his black overcoat and nodded.

"Smart boy," he complimented and Spot's scowl cracked slightly for a smile to almost show. "But I want to help. You boys need your voices heard."

Jester stepped forward and folded his arms over his own chest, his teeth all but bared.

"How'd ya find us?" he demanded. His blue eyes that, when David had met him, had been filled were mirth, dripped with venom.

"I was looking for the Duane Street lodging house," he explained. "To speak with a one, Jack Kelly…"

He reached back into his overcoat and produced the article Denton had written about them. It looked freshly ripped from the paper despite the fact that the article was two months old.

"…on my way, I heard voices in here. I glanced down into the window and saw you all." Ashby replaced the article and held his hands out as though to say 'and that's my story.'

Jack unfolded his arms and smirked.

"Alright," he said. "I'll bite. You're a detective? Detectify us our killer."

Ashby smiled. "Glad to do so, Mr. Kelly."

He stuck his hand out once more. Jack spat into his palm and stuck out his own hand. Without batting an eye, Ashby moved his hand to his mouth and repeated the gesture. They shook on it and the assembled boys let out a cheer.

David felt knees dig into his back and he turned to see that boy, Gypsy.

"I don't trust him," he said quietly, clenching his hands into white-knuckled fists.

Skittery, who was on David's other side, nodded.

"Me neither."

--

Mush rubbed his hands together quickly, blowing hot air into them. Autumn was coming but it was not the weather that gave him chills. It was the card in Gypsy's deck. The woman sitting up in the bed with her face in her hands. A bright blue room. Nine swords above and behind her.

Like the dream. The nine of swords. Past memories not yet to put to rest…he shuddered.

He walked quickly back to the Lodging House, feeling eyes on him wherever he went. He tried to instill upon himself a sense of safety. They were under protection now. That detective was going to help them.

"Mush!" a hand reached out and touched his sleeve.

With a start, he spun around, lifting his arm up to hit whoever was there. The hand snapped up and grabbed him.

"It's me."

A relieved breath left his lips when he saw Blink's narrow face looking back at him concernedly.

"Ya scared me," he said in a small voice, his heart thundering embarrassingly.

Blink smiled. "Sorry. You just walked away so fast after Jack dismissed us, I was worried you was gonna get hurt."

Mush nodded a little.

"You ain't able 't be on your own, Mushy." His grin widened.

His own face darkened. Of course not. He was too simple-minded to stay on his own in the night. He could get lost. Little Mushy, no brains to his name. Where had he heard that before? Before the Lodging House and the boys…

"Come on." Blink's voice was suddenly rushed and nervous. "I heard something."

He seized his arm and dragged him down the street. Their feet pounded on the stones, the boots making rap-tapping rhythms on the ground. They ran in a frenzied pattern, erratic and twisting. As Mush ran, his thoughts ran in crazy succession. Giants with their globe eyes and huge hands. Reaching down and picking him up.

A woman with cocoa skin and full lips stroking his hair. Calling him her lamb like Gypsy did to him. A man, pale and stark against the backdrop of Harlem. Dancing him around the room with his feet on his boots. Seeing a white, even smile on his pale face. The same one Mush saw when he looked in the mirror. Flashes of memories.

Bright light, like a star exploding on him. A little boy was crying. Someone was yelling but it was tight as though through clenched teeth. A women sobbed somewhere in the back of his mind. Blink's hand no longer clutched his wrist. He was floating somewhere in his memories. Memories to make him sit up like a shot in his bed with his head in his hands.

Nine swords above and behind him.

He was back on the street with Blink. He was running. He kept his pace, running behind him but then everything stopped. His legs went out from under him and he collapsed on the street.

--

Jack and David walked home in silence. It was unsaid as to whether or not Jack would come home with him, they just walked together. Their steps were in perfect rhythm. David watched their feet. Right and right. Left and left. Moving in sync like a marching army.

"What'd you think Dave?" Jack asked at long last.

He bounced his shoulders in a kind of half shrug and they continued. David lived on Hester Street and Jack always felt a little uneasy. He was from the Bowery, an entirely different area, before he came to his boys. Hester Street was like a different era. People speaking Hebrew or Polish, all one mash.

But now the streets were vacant. Eerily vacant. The only sound was their footsteps on the stone. A rhythmic tapping that Jack could mark time to.

"What do you think of Ashby?" he tried again.

Another half shrug. "I think he's trustworthy."

Jack nodded. "Another Denton, right?"

David gave a small smile. "A little."

They reached his tenement and Jack lightly placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I don't trust 'im."

"You shouldn't. None of us should."

"But ya just said—"

"I said he was trustworthy, not that we could trust him."

Jack smirked. "Dave, sometimes you amaze me."

They entered through the fire escape. Sarah had left the window open, hoping to capture the last warmth of summer, no doubt, before autumn set in. David quietly closed it after they were inside. Sarah didn't know about the murders. That someone could and probably would slip in their house at night and strangle them in their sleep.

Jack used to have nightmares of a man in black. He came in windows and slit people's throats while they slept. He had a face like one of those masks that hung in Irving Hall: one happy and one sad. Medda said they were comedy and tragedy. In his dreams, the man always wore the comedy mask. There was nothing to laugh about. When he'd have the nightmares, he'd go to his mother and she'd ladle him up and kiss him. But she was gone.

He never told anyone about the dreams.

"Are you sleeping here?" David asked in a dull voice.

"Looks that way."

He bent down and gingerly picked up Les. The little boy didn't stir at all as Jack carried him to their parents' bed. He didn't do it to be specifically left alone in a bed with David but it would have gotten cramped. Les immediately corked his mouth with his thumb and grasped onto the sheets as though he were far younger than he was. Jack gave a soft smile before going back to the room.

David was sitting on the bed. Against the faded white of his longjohns, his skin was almost glowing in the moonlight. His lips were slightly parted and his blue eyes were otherworldly. He wondered what would happen if he went over there, fisted a mass of his chestnut curls and put his mouth on top of his…

"Jack?"

He nearly physically shook his head.

"Sorry…what?"

"Are you coming?"

He nodded slowly and went over to the bed. He started to slowly undress. David watched him baldly, as though he didn't care. It somehow emboldened Jack. What if he unbuttoned his longjohns? Slipped them down over his chest, let them rest teasingly on his hipbones and then drop? No. David was just watching him take off his layers. Nothing visceral involved.

He lay down on the mattress and felt his eyelids begin to droop. He felt the sheets be pulled up by David. He heard murmurings pass through David's lips before he finally drifted off but not that dreadful rocking from the night before. He casually draped his arm over his chest. David's eyes flew open.

"Jack," he said quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Are we all damned?"

His voice was strange and hollow but faraway as though he were still asleep.

"What makes you say that?"

Jack studied his face. It was as though he wore a mask, hiding the David he knew and loved. He closed his eyes.

"I don't know," he murmured. "But I feel it."

He remembered the masked man in his dreams. Coming in and cutting throats. He had felt him too. Felt him everywhere he went. Felt like he was going to die.

"David, do you have any…strange dreams?" he asked.

His eyes flew open once more but it was David, not the sleepwalker he had been talking to earlier.

"No," he whispered quickly, in a frightened voice. "What makes you say that?"

Jack smiled a little. "Calm down, Davey. I was just askin'."

He quieted and they didn't speak for awhile. For a moment, he thought that David had fallen asleep until he spoke.

"I feel responsible for it."

"For what?"

"…The murders. Jack, I've been having dreams of boys. Dead boys, with that silk tied around their necks."

Jack lifted the arm on his chest and clasped his chin in one hand.

"You ain't causin' this, Dave."

He laughed. It was a forced bark that shuddered the air. Sarah stirred in her bed but did not awaken.

"Of course I know that," he said. "But knowing something and feeling something are two different things."

Jack nodded and felt his head grow heavy. He wanted to keep talking to David but his body was drained. The last two days felt more taxing than the entire strike had been.

"Davey, ya ain't causin' it. Your dreams…" he sighed. "Look, when I was little, I had dreams of this guy who came in windows and killed people. It didn't exactly happen but if it did, I'd feel the same way you did."

"Are you lying? Or, what was it? Improving the truth?"

"I wouldn't," he said gravely. "Not about this."

They lay silent once more. Jack felt himself finally falling into the abyss of sleep. He let his arm fall back over David's chest. Before sleep finally took him, he was vaguely aware of something tugging on him.

When he awoke sometime before the graying out of dawn, the sheets were twisted in their legs and David was grasping his hand for dear life. His face a mask of pain. Jack, in his half-awake state, remembered the kiss last night and how it soothed them both. This time, he took the dare.

He leaned down and placed a small kiss on David's lips. Light but tender. He dropped his head back on the pillow and drifted in a dreamless sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Mush tried to open his eyes and, after several attempts, managed to get them open half-mast. He tried to open them once more and couldn't help but think that the whole mess looked like he was fluttering them like bug's wings.

"Mush?" a voice. A familiar voice. It was faraway as though he were hearing it in a dream. But it was familiar and comforting like a comforting blanket draped on his shoulders.

"Mush!"

Someone was shaking him. He finally got his eyes open. Faces masked in curiosity leaned over him. They spun and blurred before finally coming into focus. Race's sharp, fox-like face. Blink's narrow face with the mouth far too wide for it and his sparkling eye.

"What happened?" a voice with the lightest hint of an accent from faraway. A real pretty one. Like he could listen to it all day. To sing lullabies. Lullaby…

Sleep. Sleep sounded really good. He was tired. He felt his eyes begin to droop. Someone grabbed his shoulders again.

"Mush!"

He opened his eyes again.

"Sorry," he murmured.

"S'ok," Blink said in an equally low voice that sounded choked. Was he eating?

"What happened?" that lullaby voice came back.

"Mush took a tumble." A sharp voice, deeply accented. Race. It was Race who was talking.

"I fell?" he asked, trying to sit up.

Blink's hand forced him back down.

"Lay back down." He turned his back on him to address someone else. "We was just runnin' and he fell right in the middle of the walk. He was talkin' crazy stuff."

Crazy stuff?

"Crazy stuff?" the accented lullaby voice again. Who was it? He tried to remember but his brain felt so tired. So tired…

Blink lowered his voice but he could never whisper. Even in his half-awake state, Mush could hear everything he said.

"Something about giants and a blue room. He must've hit his head hard."

Race laughed. "Like he needed to one more time!"

Blink shushed him and turned back around. A large grin was on his face but he didn't buy it. He was so…so…

"I'm tired…"

Blink put a hand on his face, his palm was hot and clammy but it was somehow soothing, the way his hand cupped the curve of his face and how his thumb lightly massaged the skin next to his lip.

"Go to sleep, Mushy," he said quietly.

His voice was hypnotizing and Mush felt his eyelids droop once more. This time he let them and soon darkness took him.

--

Dread wrapped Jack in a suffocating shroud the moment he set eyes on Wildcat. The Queens leader was meandering near the gate of the distribution center. His ginger hair was as usual, standing straight up and caked with dirt. Gypsy and a boy who he knew to be called Pickle were next to him. All three wore ashen expressions of grief.

"What's new?" Jack asked, forcing cheerfulness through clenched teeth.

Wildcat looked at Pickle who shrugged lightly and stared down at his bare feet. He glanced at Jack with his golden cat's eyes.

"We're sorry," he said in a muted voice.

"For what?" David had come up behind him, Les at his side.

Gypsy reached into his pouch and pulled something out. Jack let out a strangled cry and immediately used the palm of his hand to quell it. It was a red armband, used for keeping sleeves up. Simple, red and yellow threads knit together to hold back simple cotton but there was more to it. It was Snoddy's armband.

"We found 'im this mornin'," Pickle said, still staring at his feet as though they were crusted with jewels. "Thought you'd want it. If you wanna come and get the body to bury…we'll help ya cut it down."

Jack nodded numbly. He had seen two dead bodies so far but this hit home. He knew Snoddy, loved Snoddy, treated him like a brother. And now he was dead. He turned around, feeling his body locked up tight. David put a hand on his shoulder but he didn't really feel it.

"Jake," he called the other boy over.

Jack extricated himself from the throng and jogged over, his near perpetual smile on his face. It fell the moment he saw the armband. Tears filled his eyes.

"No…" he murmured in his lightly accented voice. "Can't be. Snoddy's not…"

Jack put a hand on his shoulder. He, David and Jake must've looked like a bizarre, human train.

"I'm sorry, Jake."

Jake grasped the armband and the tears started to fall. No boy walking by judged or persecuted him.

"'E was my best friend," he murmured.

Jack suddenly was seized with the urge to get away from him. He broke their connection and started to walk away briskly. He heard footfalls behind him. Quick and close together in succession. David's footsteps.

As Jack hurried to the platform, tears were threatening to squeeze from his eyes. They hovered saltily on his lower lids, threatening to make a bid for freedom and trail down his face.

"Jack?" A comforting voice behind him.

He turned, expecting to see David but instead it was Gypsy. His heavy lids were halfway closed and a mournful expression was on his face.

"I'm very sorry, Cowboy," he told him.

"Don't be."

Gypsy nodded. "I wish I could have seen it coming…"

Jack's lip curled slightly. Gypsy who thought he could read your fate in cards or in your hand and thought that the future played before his mind's eye in his dreams. Gypsy was a fool.

"Jack?" This time it was David. He called to him from the gates, standing there in adolescent awkwardness and clutching Les to his side.

Jack gave Gypsy a final nod and went down to meet David.

"Yeah?" he asked, blinking his eyes in rapid succession to force the tears back.

"Race sent me to tell you something…"

Jack opened his mouth to speak but the words lodged in this throat. They pressed like dry glass and almost suffocated him. He took a deep breath and looked around before trying once more. Someone was missing. Someone who knew about the deaths from the start. One of his best friends. A small ray of sunshine from an even smile was missing from the square. Jack felt his body lock up and start to quiver.

"Where's Mush?" he asked.

David's face grew concerned and Jack figured he had to look like a wild man.

"That's what Race came to tell you," he explained. "Mush is sick."

The relief that shuddered through him was literally sickening. It made him want to double up and spew bile all over the square.

"Yeah." The short, Italian boy stepped forward. "He's not…ya know. He's just not…"

He made a motion with his hand near his head as though to indicate that Mush wasn't entirely right in the head.

"Fell down last night. Blink's takin' care of him. Just so ya know…"

Jack nodded. "Yeah, sure. Make sure you get some for their stay tonight."

Race nodded. "Sure. Skits and me are headin' out with Specs…Specs is hell of scared. Thinks it's his fault Dutchy's gone. Anyway, you two wanna come with?"

He shook his head. "Nah. I'll help Skits's fear and go with the kids. Right, Dave?"

Skittery screwed up his face slightly, his lower hip coming out in what could easily be mistaken for a petulant pout.

"I don't care 'bout no kids, Jack!"

He forced a smirk onto his face, trying to clasp onto normalcy.

"Right, Skits. Keep tellin' yourself that."

"We have to go to Queens," David said flatly.

The other three boys turned to look at him. David's mouth was drawn in and his eyes focusing on a point somewhere over Jack's shoulder. He craned his neck to find him looking at Gypsy.

"Why?" Jack asked, incredulous. His eyes flicked down to meet Race's briefly before looking back at David's out of focus gaze.

"I don't know…" David looked down at his boots. Obviously, the sudden urge to order them around had left him. The awkward boy whom Jack had first run into was back.

"Ashby's probably down there," Race put in. A smile gouged his face, showing all of his crooked teeth. "Hey, he's like our new Denton."

Skittery chuckled slightly, nervously.

"Dave'n'me'll go," Jack said. "You guys need 't sell. Got it?"

Racetrack and Skittery nodded in unison some a couple of marionettes. They walked stiffly away before the taller of the duo stopped.

"Jack…" Skittery shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "If you want, I could take the kids with us sellin'."

For the first time in what felt like forever but could only have been a couple of days, Jack really laughed.

"Sure thing, Skits. Go for it."

--

Mush was awake when Blink came back from washing up. He was awake and sitting up.

"Hello?" he called. Blink was struck how much Mush could still sound like a child. It was almost eerie. "Where is everyone?"

Blink stepped back into the bedding area, the smell of sweat and boy bodies not affecting him as it usually did. He had spent the morning in the Lodging House and his nose had gotten used to it.

He remembered when he was very little. His tenement smelled bad too. Two other families were cramped with theirs. Blink's family had simply been called 'those Swedes' and he had shared a bed with both of his brothers before they died. Blink couldn't remember much of his old life. Just a woman singing and stroking his hair and his brother, Charles, dying of pneumonia.

"Blink? Is that you?"

He shook his head, the motion dragging him back into the presence.

"I'm here, Mush. Just washin' up."

Mush smiled a little. "That's good. I thought…"

His face clouded over and it took Blink a moment to realize what he was insinuating.

"…that I slept too long," he finished with a small sigh.

Blink nodded and went to sit next to him. As he did, he noticed something. It was probably due to his voice and less than average intelligence that caged him permanently in the land of little boys that Blink had never noticed that Mush had grown significantly. He seemed almost too big for the bed.

He remembered the night he came to the Lodging House, bloody and cold and scared, and Blink had leant him his bed, scrunching in with Racetrack. He had just been Kid then, having not earned the injury that would take his left eye. A tiny little oatmeal-colored thing with riotous curls and ears too big for his head.

"Blink…you're lookin' at me all funny…"

He shook his head again.

"No real reason, Mushy. Just thinkin' how big you've got since ya got here."

Mush frowned. "Really? I couldn't be taller than you."

It was true, Blink knew but he _felt_ smaller. Not height-wise but physically. Mush's shoulders had broadened and his arms looked stronger. His clothes from the other day still wrapped his body but he knew that he had surpassed him there too with his strong chest and stomach. Not any of the skinniness that still plagued himself.

"Yeah, I guess. Guess I'm just jealous." Blink smiled.

"I'm jealous 'cause you got that mouth and all I got is this thing." Mush giggled and twisted his lower lip.

It felt like before. When they were carefree. The strike was over, they'd won. Everything was good. No one had been killed. God, had it only been two days?

And last night as well. The sickening feeling that they were being watched and the need to escape and Mush had…he…

"Mush?"

"Yeah?" he tilted his face up and it once more reminded Blink of a small child's.

"You're my best friend, right?" He was going to use it as a kind of ploy to get him to tell him what went on before he collapsed but Mush had something else in mind, it seemed.

He shook his head. "Nope."

His smile fell completely.

"What?"

"I said 'nope.' We ain't best friends, Blink. But go on." He folded his hands like a proper young lady and even in his shocked state, Blink had to laugh.

His face grew serious once more. This was not an easy feat, he knew, with a mouth like his. He always felt the need to be smiling, grinning. Someone had to, didn't they?

"What happened last night?"

Mush's face turned grave. His eyes widened and his lower lip twitched slightly.

"I…" he took a deep breath. "I dunno. I was runnin' whitcha and I was having these hell of weird flashes and then it all went black and…it went black."

His voice sharpened and hit a high note that confused him. Before he could press him, Mush pressed on.

"Then I woke up here," he finished.

"Wait…flashes?"

He swallowed, his Adam's apple working against the thin skin of his throat.

"Just stuff from before I came to you guys. My mama and papa." He gave a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders but Blink could tell that it meant more than he was saying. Was…was Mush being evasive on purpose? _Could_ he do that?

Blink recalled the memory he had conjured earlier of Mush's arrival into the Lodging House. Covered in blood. He would ask him but he had just remembered it himself and couldn't expect Mush to remember it at all.

"Blink?"

He glanced up. "Yeah?"

"Don't be sad 'bout what I said about the best friend thing."

"I'm…not."

"You are." He smiled like he had a secret. "'Cause you ain't my best friend."

"I ain't?"

He shook his head. "Nope. You're my brother."

--

Ashby was already down in Queens when Jack, David and the trio who had given them the armband arrived.

David reached forward to shake his hand. It was warm, dry and strong. A comforting hand to hold and shake. The Queens boys and Jack, though, regarded him in the wary way that animals regarded humans trampling into their territory.

Wildcat stepped forward. He was a lithe cat of a boy with ginger hair and an overgrown canine tooth that protruded over his lower lip and golden eyes. David had noted that he was one of the smaller leaders at the meeting last night, second only to Spot. Like the boy he knew from Brooklyn, he was incredibly intimidating.

"You askin' 'bout Snoddy?" he asked in a hissing voice.

Ashby nodded. "Yes. I'm trying to find something to draw the murders together."

He handed Wildcat a notebook with a short list scribbled on it. The leader passed it to Gypsy.

"I can't read," he said gruffly in lieu of explanation.

Gypsy squinted at it for a moment before passing it to the other boy with them. He was a rather attractive lad, David noted. Fair skinned and haired with heavy-lidded eyes and full lips. His eyes, though, were disconcerting. Greenish yellow and almost watery.

"Pickle, what's it say?" Jack asked, not leaving David's side.

"Chord. Different place." He furrowed his brow at the paper.

Jack snatched it away and gave it to David. David's looked at Ashby's writing: small, concise and thick with black ink; it was hard to read the curving letters.

"Chord and different place." He shrugged. "Like he said."

He handed it to Jack but Ashby promptly took it back. It may have been a trick of David's eye but it looked as though his hand lingered a bit too long on Jack's.

"Boys," he began. "It means the similarities between the murders. Each victim is strangled with a silk chord of varying color and then dangled from somewhere that isn't their…territory."

Much to David's surprise, Jack grinned happily at the news.

"So we can figure out who he's attacking next?" his voice held a bite that didn't coincide with the smile stretched over his handsome, narrow face.

Ashby shook his head. "No. I'm sorry. But it's something, isn't it?"

The grin didn't leave Jack's face. David noticed the other newsboys—including the puzzling Gypsy who had scared Mush so much last night with his cards—looking on appreciatively.

"Somethin' ain't nothin', _Oliver_," he said, still grinning as though he had just said the funniest thing. "Come on, Davey. Let's go bury Snoddy."

David didn't really like his immediate dismissal of Ashby and offered an apologetic smile as Jack stalked away to where the body had been cut down.

"I'm sorry."

Ashby shook his head.

"It's no problem. I'd be testy too if I were in his place." He took David's hand in his once more and shook it. "I'll look into the others and see what I can find."

"Thank you."

Ashby tipped his bowler hat to say 'you're welcome' before starting away. He turned back after taking only two steps.

"Jack…he's a bit of a grinner, isn't he? A blinder of a grin he had."

David shrugged, trying not to think of Jack's grin, making him look almost deranged on his regularly immaculate face.

"I suppose."

"Right. Good day."

"Bye…"

He left David confused. He found Gypsy standing besides him. He held the worn deck of cards between his dirty hands, his face set in a glare.

"He scares me."

David gave him a forced smile.

"He's helping us."

Gypsy smirked. "Sure he is."

His eyes clouded over momentarily and his lips curled into almost a snarl. David watched him in confusion before he shook his head rapidly and turned to smile at him.

"Go help Cowboy, blue eyes."

He left as well, leaving David, for the second time in under two minutes, utterly confused.


	6. Chapter 6

It was a somber affair. A shallow gave dug in the small scrap of a lawn behind the Lodging House. The grass was a pale and sickly green and prickled to the touch. Jack dug the hole with a small hand shovel with a broken handle. The others stared down into the short tomb with grief-stricken faces. Jake's sobbing had subsided into mere sniffles but he wore the red arm band on his bicep.

In reverence, Jack spoke the entire funeral in Irish. Very few boys understood but the grief in his voice was almost palpable and unmistakable. Skittery and Bumlets shoveled the dirt over his uncovered body. David stood near the back. When they had rolled him in, he had had to stare up at the sky. It was bloated and gray, the clouds about to pop and send a shower of water down up on their heads. Perfect weather for a funeral. At least nature understood sorrow.

Afterwards, they shuffled away to sell the afternoon edition or squander what they had already made on food or a show.

David opted for going home. He felt sick all of a sudden. He saw Skittery ushering the kids back away from the grave. His hand was locked around Tumbler's entire bicep and clutched Snipeshooter's wrist in a hurrying manner. Boots trailed behind him, looking far more responsible and mature than the other two but still confined in a little boy's body.

And he froze. As Jack passed him, he reached out and seized his forearm. Something was missing.

"Jack…" he croaked. "Les…"

He followed his gaze and then turned back to David.

"He's probably off somewhere else. Maybe he's waitin' outside the funeral…"

David didn't hear the rest of his sentence. He ran towards Skittery and grabbed his shoulder.

"Where's Les?" he demanded, finding an emotion finally, blinded rage and icy fear.

Skittery looked momentarily confused. "Les didn't come with us. He said he was going with you."

As he slowly let up from his shoulder, realization dawned on him and he knew that he'd probably never see his brother again.

--

Blink couldn't remember the last time it had rained this hard. It had started shortly after the funeral and had yet to stop. The boys had run inside, Kloppman generously allowing them to stay for free that night because of the triumvirate of circumstances: Snoddy, the killer still wreaking havoc and the weather.

The clouds hung low in the sky and the wild wind scattered whatever paths the rain took to connect the ground with the sky. Shin-deep puddles formed in whatever impression they could find in the street. It was as though God himself was waging war upon them, Blink thought despite his own murky beliefs. Maybe the killer would be washed away.

He has destroyed the world with the raindrops as his minions, he thought. Lying in his bed, Blink couldn't help but think that there were worse ways to go than drowning.

He turned his head. There was no color anymore. It was as though the thieving rains, the killing rains, had come down and taken the reds, yellows, blues and everything they made to leave them with a desolate plain of gray and black.

The other boys sat around, playing cards or talking quietly. Their voices were drowned out in the crash of rain. A bolt of lightening scarred the sky, illuminating the whole room in eerie light. Bluish and almost buzzing

Blink rose when he saw the silhouette at the window. The only boy not playing cards or taking a nap.

"Mush?"

He didn't turn. It was strange, watching him. It was though he were in a trance. His palms were pressed up on the pane and the lightening crackled in his eyes. His expression was almost faraway as though he weren't actually there.

Blink put a hand on his shoulder.

"Mush?" he tried once more.

"How many are gonna die, Blink?" he asked in his child's voice, his eyes still planted on the rain-soaked street. "How many are gonna die before we find this guy?"

"I-I dunno."

Tears welled up, distorting the light reflected from the lightening.

"I don't wanna die," he whispered in a hoarse voice. "I don't wanna."

Blink reached forward and put his other hand on his shoulder, pulling Mush into a hug. His eyes still crackled as they focused on a spot somewhere out the window.

"I won't let you," he promised.

Mush finally turned from the window and tucked his head on Blink's shoulder like a little boy.

"I'm your brother, remember?" he asked, stroking his curls as he remembered Mush's words. "I won't let anything happen to you."

A thunderclap smashed together outside and lightening once more split the sky. He felt Mush's body tense in his arms. Any storm fascination that had been there had left for the afternoon.

Blink held him at arm's length. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the others eyeing them almost strangely; the confusion a small splash on their otherwise grief-stricken faces.

"I'm tired," Mush said after a moment. He left Blink's hold and climb up on his bed.

Blink and even some of the others watched him for a moment. He looked different somehow. His body was shaking slightly as he got under the sheets.

"What's goin' on?" Race demanded, snapping the silence in two with his loud voice.

"Mush is sick," Tumbler explained, lifting his head momentarily from Skittery's lap where he had been sleeping. "And Blink's takin' care of him!"

He let a small smile form on his small, dirt-smudged face as though he had solved the riddle of the century. Skittery urged his head back down.

"Go back to sleep, Tumb."

Blink turned his attention back to Mush. He was sucking lightly on his arm in his sleep.

The scene was almost peaceful when juxtaposed to the storm raging outside. It _was_ peaceful but also unsettling.

--

David had not said a word since they had sought shelter in his apartment. He sat on the bed, staring down at the sheets. Every so often tears would well in his eyes but he'd brush them away.

Jack had never seen David keep quiet for so long. He tried to talk, to heat up the air and regain a sense of normalcy but it was no use. Les was gone. He was probably dead too, taken in the middle of the day.

He had told Esther that he was hiding out in Irving Hall and that Medda was taking care of him. The apartment was empty. Esther and Sarah had gone to work and Mayer had gone looking for it, hoping to find a job that wouldn't mind his injury.

"It's not your fault," Jack repeated. "We didn't know."

"Jack, I'm supposed to be responsible for him," he said to the sheets as though they were his best friend and not the boy sitting next to him. "And I ruined that. I…I…"

This time the tears broke. They poured down his face and darkened the white sheets to a gray color. David's crying somehow reminded him of the storm raging outside. The torrent of tears and the torrent of rain.

He found himself patting David almost awkwardly on the shoulder. He found it strange. When David was irked or happy, Jack had no problem pulling him into a hug or throwing an arm around his shoulders. But in a new scenario with David crying, he had no idea how to be comforting.

"It'll be alright," he said, his voice sounding loud and foreign and holding too many lies.

Les was probably dead. That wasn't all right.

And there was also the guilt. Last night, after David had gone to bed—it felt like days ago—he had risen and sat on the fire escape. He had meant to go out to think, wonder the killer's next move and if he'd be next. Inevitably, his thoughts went to David and he had ended up stroking himself. Even in his lusty thoughts, he knew that whatever dark feelings he had would never be returned and his body was seized in convulsions of sadness. Feeling downright filthy, he had retreated back inside and fallen asleep. When he had awoken, his own salty scent was the first thing he smelled, reminding him of the night before.

His hand patting David's shoulder stopped. The other boy glanced up at him, his blue eyes distorted by tears.

"Jack," he said, taking a shaky breath. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

His hand dropped sheepishly to his side. He must've been eyeing him while his thoughts turned to last night.

"Looking at you how?" he asked uncomfortably.

"The way you're looking at me now," he replied cryptically.

It was almost as though his mind's dream was playing out in front of him. Maybe he _was_ dreaming still. He tentatively reached out and took David's hand, not completely aware of what he was doing. The tears were gone in the eyes that looked down at him.

"What are you doing?" he asked. His voice sounded husky and almost funny as though he were choking on something. There was probably still a salty lump of tears on the base of his tongue, getting ready to pop at the next mention of Les.

"I dunno," He answered truthfully.

"Well…could you not stop?" David asked in that straightforward way of his, not dancing around with any innuendos or games.

Jack wondered if he had heard him correctly. He had to still be dreaming. He put his hands on David's shoulders and lightly pulled down his vest. His blue eyes flashed as if he knew where this all was going. He reached forward himself and undid Jack's bandana.

Layers seemed to peel away like the petals of a flower and there was nothing between them now. Jack put his lips on his, sealing them with a warm touch. He kissed him passionately and thoroughly, moreso than he had ever kissed anyone. He got lost in his riot of chestnut curls, drowning in the blue puddles of his eyes. Jack kissed a trail of kisses down his throat. Everything was so hot. It was as though they were scorching each other with each touch and kiss.

They made love on the bed in the too hot apartment while the army of rain waged its war on the streets of Manhattan.

Afterwards, Jack slept peacefully. The sheets were wound around his waist, leaving his naked upper body entirely exposed. David watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, wide awake.

He felt dirty. Not because of what he had done but because he had succumbed while Les was gone. The lump burst and tears began to fall once more.

The weariness of crying and the sex made him fall to sleep eventually, his body still wracked with sobs.

--

Ashby frowned at the scant evidence put before him. The basic information was easy to find, yes. Each victim was strangled with a silk chord and dangled from somewhere. Each victim was a newsboy. That was all that he had.

It was taxing. He hadn't known what seized him to take the case or to figure out a way to solve it. The boys probably couldn't pay him. But they were in danger. He had seen the boy dangling from the Brooklyn docks. The tawny boy who was the first victim.

No one knew the boys. They were nameless, even to each other. Ashby couldn't begin to venture how many didn't know each other's birth names.

With a sigh, he put his evidence to the side and let his head fall in his hands. It was infuriating.

The door to his private office banged open. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boy. He knew him, everyone who knew the newsboys knew him. Short, wiry and intimidating. He had used his real name at the meeting. Thomas Conlon. He was soaked, his shirt clinging transparently to his body and his icy blue eyes flashing with more than their fair share of malice.

"You're horrible at this," he said, keeping his voice low and filled with venom. "Another boy went missin', ya know."

Ashby blinked, startled.

"What? Who? How?"

Thomas made his way over to him, his hand on the slingshot resting against his hipbone.

"Les, a little kid," he replied. "David's brother."

David, yes, he remembered David. The friend of Jack and the one with those intensely blue eyes. He felt bad for him; his brother gone. He couldn't help but feel somehow responsible.

"You're a bad detective," Thomas continued, slowly circling him.

An arcane image darted through his mind. Thomas was suddenly a tiger on an Africa pamphlet, circling his prey with glittering eyes that held more anger and rage than Ashby had ever seen.

"In fact, I bet you're the killer." Thomas stopped at his desk and rifled through his evidence with on hand; his other was still firmly on the slingshot.

Ashby realized that he was serious. He wasn't just angry; he was scared. He actually thought that he was the killer.

"Thomas, I'm not the killer," he said earnestly.

"Sure." He turned, his eyes flashing once more. They crackled with rage like the sky outside crackled with thunder. "And your arrival was just that convenient to…help us.

"I just came to warn you. If you come after another one of us, I will kill you. I will take a knife and I will stab you until you choke on your own blood and die."

With a curt nod of his head, Thomas left. The flurry of his visit led Ashby to wonder if the boy had been there at all.

He sat back down at his desk and began to look through the evidence once more.

--

Jack had big hands. Big hands with big veins.

Those were the first thoughts that went through David's head when he awoke, his head pounding from crying too much and his throat sore and aching. He saw Jack fast asleep next to him, his breath ruffling the stray hairs that fell in his face and sweat shining on his bare skin.

The memory of their coupling came at him and David blushed. He still felt dirty about it but it was hard to stay that way with Jack slumbering peacefully next to him.

Vaguely, he remembered what Jack said about the dreams of the man who killed people in their sleep. They had so much in common in that aspect if not in the way that they acted. David remembered all of the times that he wanted to be Jack. This was one of them.

David put his hand on Jack's own. Jack's hand was furled inward slight, the tips of his fingers brushing the palm of his hand. He pressed his own hand so that the fingers were straight. Jack had long fingers too. David thought that his hand looked small in comparison.

He retracted it slightly and lay back down. Carefully, he let his own hands rest on his chest. Through his niggling guilt and thoughts of Les, he couldn't help but marvel at the fact that he had been to bed with someone. That someone had been a boy and his best friend but it had been done. And the ecstasy had been wonderful.

In the midst of all of the contradicting thoughts of filth, sadness and bliss, something hit David. He shook Jack awake.

"Nah, I dun wanna," he mumbled sleepily before cracking an eye open.

"What's goin' on, Dave?" he yawned, rubbing a hand over his face as though he always belonged there in David's bed, completely naked.

"Jack, last night," he said excitedly, the new emotion mounting to exuberant proportions. "I didn't have any dreams."

"That's nice…" he mumbled once more before dropping back down.

David lay back, feeling the excitement fade and the old emotions come trundling back. Les's face swam into his mind's eye and the tears came back. He had cried more in that afternoon than he had in years.

This time, when he cried, he ducked his head on Jack's shoulder. Before he dropped off, he felt a strong arm circling his back.


	7. Chapter 7

The rains hadn't abated in the morning. If anything, they had gotten angrier. David found out the moment he got to the distribution center that Heck, one of the missing Bronx boys, had been found dangling in Harlem.

Strangely, his mind wasn't on the body nor the murderer still out there. It was on Jack. They walked together to the center a good foot apart. Jack kept glancing at him furtively and David found himself doing the same thing. A is-he-watching-don't-let-him-watch-you-watching-him thing that he had seen Sarah's friends do when a rather strapping young lad walked by.

David felt horrible about doing what they had done while Les was missing. He remembered reading something in school about how an author was jailed for loving another man. Could either of them possibly be jailed? He let out a sigh and continued on.

He and Jack walked in silence, keeping under awnings and marquees to keep out of the torrential rain.

They had reached the gates and Jack looked as though he were about to speak. A white smudge ran towards them, waving their arms. A smear of black was on the top as they pelted through the gate.

"Jack!" the smudge was Racetrack. He seized the taller boy's biceps and looked as though he had crawled from the underbrush. He was wild.

"What?"

"Dutchy!" he shouted over the pouring rain and smacking thunder. "It's different!"

"Different how?" David asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

Race's face clouded and his eyes somehow became a couple of shades darker, making them look nearly black on his pointed, white face.

"They didn't dangle him," he said in a near whisper. "They just…left him here."

He pointed with one, shaky hand to the platform where a soaked bed sheet covered a boy-sized lump. David felt like puking again. Jack put a hand on his shoulder but then immediately retracted it.

Specs was on the ground, a look of great sadness on his face. Jake had his hand on his shoulder, the shared pain between them for their lost friends nearly palpable. It was a strange scene, David noted, the gaggle of boys in the pouring rain and the lightening that lit everything up like an eerie picture.

Like they were having their photograph taken: scenes of grief.

"Two in one night." Jack spat on the ground, the bit of saliva dribbling down his chin slightly in a way that made him have to wipe his lips. David watched those lips and those hands and, purely reflexively, felt a blush prickle up the back of his neck. The memory of what those hands had done, the large hands David remembered looking at afterwards and nearly marveling at their size and the length of his fingers, made the blush deepen.

"Davey, you sick? You're all red."

Mush came up next to him, smiling the sunshine smile that cast a ray of light on the otherwise dreary day. He was wet slightly on the boots and on his sleeve but he was dry mostly.

"'Cause I was sick for the past coupla days. Actin' all weird."

He shook his head numbly. "I'm fine. Thanks, though."

Mush nodded and glanced at where Dutchy was. His face darkened and he made the sign of the cross.

"Poor Dutchy," he murmured. "I liked Dutchy."

As he watched him watch the others lift Dutchy onto their shoulders, David saw something different in his face. The blind optimism and dumb-puppy look that was always on his face was gone. Even when Mush had been disappointed, he looked somewhat canine with his far apart brown eyes and upturned nose. Now, his looks were somehow fiercer and frightened. Something was bothering him.

"Mush…" he wasn't quite sure why he was asking it but he did all the same. "Do you have…dreams?"

He tore his eyes from the boys and a look of fear clouded his face for a moment before his usual smile returned.

"Davey, everyone dreams."

"I mean…different dreams."

He bit his lower lip. "Um…sometimes I dream about giants. Like that…never mind. I…why're you askin' anyway?"

David looked furtively around; everyone was preoccupied with the body. He felt strange, sharing his dreams with someone other than Jack. As if the others would blame him for it.

"I've been…having these dreams about the boys. Not real clear on who's who but they're like the bodies with the silk chord and strangled and everything."

Mush's eyes widened and David waited for the blame.

"That's creepy. Maybe you're like Gypsy 'n can tell the future."

He shuddered, feeling a chill he couldn't attribute to the rain.

"I don't want to."

"Me neither. I've been…" he shook his head. "Nothin', Dave. You gettin' in line?"

David nodded. "Yeah."

"Wanna come sell with me'n'Blink' today?"

"Sure."

"Good 'cause Blink's been bein' like my mama or somethin' since I was sick'n'all and I want someone else there."

They started where the other boys stood; Dutchy's body was now cleared and planned to be buried later that day. They pulled their hats down to soak up some of the rain but it was to no avail and they had to dart up the stairs to minimal shelter.

"Are you okay now?" David queried.

He nodded. "Yeah. I just fell down and felt real sleepy for a coupla days. I think I mighta banged my head up a little but I feel better now." He rapped the side of his skull. "See?"

David laughed naturally for the first time in what felt like forever. "Yeah, I see."

Mush looked as though he were about to speak again but someone came rushing up through the gates, yelling.

"Tan lamb! Tan lamb!" It was the Queens boy, Gypsy. He looked wild and scared, much as Race had.

He ran through, shoving his way past those in line to grab Mush's arm.

"You!" he gasped. "I saw it! I saw it!"

David noticed that Blink was watching Mush warily from farther up in line. He hadn't been kidding; he had never seen the other boy so concerned.

"What about me?" Mush asked. "What'd you see?"

Gypsy took a deep breath and looked around, noticing that some of the somber faces were looking at him.

He lowered his voice. "I had a vision last night. Tan lamb, you're in danger. The killer wants you next."

David put a hand on his shoulder. "Alright, that's enough."

He shrugged him away. "You're in danger, lamb. He's not just gonna kill you. He wants you first."

Mush screwed his face up. "Wants me to do what?"

David knew. The look on Gypsy's dirt-streaked face told it all. He wanted to have Mush like Jack had him last night. The thought made his stomach turn. Mush was still so much like a child. Like he was untouched, pure.

He pushed Gypsy away slightly. "Come on, that's enough."

He turned to look at him.

"Blue eyes," he said. "You need to tell Cowboy what Spot told Wildcat. He thinks Ashby's it."

"What?"

"Ashby. Spot thinks that Ashby's the killer."

David remembered his odd behavior when they went to get Snoddy's body. The talk of Jack's grin and how Gypsy had seemed suspicious about him. He had thought that Ashby was on their side but if he was the killer…he shuddered to think.

"What do you mean?"

"Spot told us that…listen, just hear it from him." A smile played upon his lips. "Because I know you don't believe me, blue eyes."

"How do you…"

"It's written all over your face. You don't like me."

Mush glanced at him. "It's 'cause you see things, Gyp. Davey's scared of what you'll see. Right?"

His spine stiffened. How did Mush see that?

"I…"

Gypsy waved a hand. "Go see Spot. I need to get back before I catch cold."

He flicked water from one of his curls before taking off. David turned to see that a rather large gap had opened during their conversation and he grabbed Mush to hurry him along.

After they bought their papers, he and Mush met up with Blink who was talking to Jack.

"Jack, go see Spot. He has something to tell you," he said.

Blink stepped forward and began to look Mush up and down. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, Kid. I'm fine."

David may have imagined it but it looked like Mush had just rolled his eyes.

"Can we go?" he asked. "This place is making me nervous."

Blink nodded. "Yeah. Davey comin' with?"

"Yup."

As they went to leave, Jack grabbed David's arm and pulled him aside.

"Jack!" Mush whined. "We're gonna be behind!"

He glared at him over David's shoulder. "It'll just be a minute, Mushy."

He looked back at him, brown eyes seeming to bore into his soul. David nearly had to look away.

"Davey…do you have any regrets about last night?" before he could answer, Jack continued. "'Cause I don't. I'm _glad_ it happened. Do you know how long I wanted to do that?"

"Jack…this…isn't the right time," he said diplomatically. "But if you must know, no. And you need to go see Spot."

He let out a sigh. "How are we gonna do this?"

"Do this? You mean…it? Again?" David felt his face heat up.

"No," Jack laughed. "You offerin'? I mean, with the murders. There're some boys missin', includin' Les. What're we gonna do about that?"

"You think I know? Listen, Gypsy said that Spot said some suspicions to Wildcat. Go talk to him."

He let up from his shoulders. "Deal. Now go sellin', alright?"

--

When Jack arrived in Brooklyn, it was raining considerably lighter but a fine spittle was still coming from the clouds. Spot was waiting for him on the docks, his eyes flashing with the same intensity of the storm.

When he stood up, he spat grimly into his palm before shaking hands with him.

"So, what's goin' on?"

Spot slid his walking stick into the loop of his pants and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level.

"That Ashby guy came over here early this mornin'. All crazy-eyed and tellin' me I was wrong and that it wasn't him and all this garbage."

They began to walk slowly and deliberately away from the docks. Jack didn't quite know where they were going but he knew deep in his mind that they had a destination.

"Said I came to visit him last night at his office and I don't even know where his office _is_."

"So you think he's the killer?"

"Yeah, and I'm his conscious." Spot threw his head back in laughter, his wet hair falling back in lank sections.

They stopped at the start of the bridge, the umbilical chord separating Manhattan from the mother city. Jack always felt a strange kind of loneliness when he crossed the bridge as if he were missing something.

"So what're we gonna do, Spot?"

Spot squinted over the bridge through the rain as if he were looking for something.

"We're gonna find his office and confront him. Any idea where it is?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Before Snoddy's funeral, I met him there to talk about it. Tried to find out what he knew."

They began to cross the bridge, ducking their heads from the rain. Jack considered broaching the subject of David to him but thought better of it. Spot would probably not care, not judge, but he didn't feel the need to bring it up.

They walked in silence. Jack could scarcely remember where the office was except that it was in the basement of a building and he had to walk down a flight of narrow steps that made him dizzy.

"So you think it's him?" he said after a while. His throat hurt. His bandana was soaked and rubbed painfully against his skin as he walked. He brushed his fingers over the irritated ring of skin, feeling a small abrasion on the slope of his neck.

He remembered how it got there and nearly blushed.

"Yeah. Even if it ain't, that guy isn't really the sort we wanna be associatin' wit."

He nodded. "Yeah. Crazy as a shithouse rat."

Jack stopped. Something niggling at the back of his mind told him that they were in the right place. It had been there where he had descended the stairs and nearly tripped to get to the office and tell Ashby. Ashby who was probably a murderer.

"What?"

"It's here."

They looked at each other for a long minute before sharing a curt nod of the head. In unison, they walked together.

The staircase was just as dizzying as Jack remembered, feeling as if he were going to fall off as he walked down. His head spun and he tripped. Spot's arm shot out and grabbed him.

"See, benefits to bein' short, Cowboy."

Jack barked a low laugh and they continued. The second their feet hit the basement, he felt his head swim once more and the dizzy feeling returned. Spot took a step back, a stricken look on his usually unflappable face. His eyes twin china saucers of shock.

Ashby was at his desk, his body half over it. Like Lion, the back of his head was bashed in. His arms lay splayed in front of him and his face was buried in the wood of his desk. The wood itself had been splintered slightly from the ingrain of his head.

The chord bound at his throat was unmistakable.

"Think he offed himself?" Spot asked, his voice flat and foreign.

"No one could off theirself like that." Jack put a hand over his mouth, feeling bile rise in his throat and his stomach twist and churn.

He waited for Spot's answer but all he got was a wet coughing sound behind him. He turned to see Spot doubled up, expelling the contents of his stomach violently onto the wooden floor. When he finished, he stood up and wiped his mouth.

"Well, Jackie-boy." His usual flippancy returned, the scared boy vomiting just moments ago gone. "I guess he ain't our killer."

Jack gave him a sardonic smile. "Guess not."

--

David, Blink and Mush trudged down the street. They seemed like vibrant splashes of color on the drab streets. The color seemed to have drained from the city, leaving a muted canvas. The rain had stopped almost completely now but everything was still gray and dead.

Mush seemed strangely down; not walking ahead like usual or singing or whistling like he usually did. There was no spring in his step and David saw a line of goose bumps on his bare legs leading up to his short pants that something told him didn't have to do with the chilly weather.

Blink had his bicep clutched in one arm as if he was worried that Mush was going to collapse at any moment. He had adopted a responsible look on his exaggerated features that David had never seen before.

"Blink, let _up_. I'm fine!" Mush complained, hitting him with his soaked papers.

Blink retracted only for a moment and Mush bolted down the street.

"Mush!" he gave chase. David stood on the walk, watching them for a moment as if he didn't know what had just happened. After a beat, he took off after them.

David caught up with Blink easily. The blonde had come to a dead stop.

"Where'd he go?" Blink asked.

"I just got here," he panted.

He glanced down the alley. "Mush?"

David followed his gaze, hoping to see more than Blink had. There was no sign of Mush.

"Where'd he go? He can't have gone far."

Before Blink could answer, a cry rented the air. It wasn't a cry for help but more like a yelp of pain that dogs made when it was kicked in the side. He remembered his words about Mush and how he reminded him of a puppy.

The blonde boy paled visibly. "Oh, no."


	8. Chapter 8

Jack burst into the empty Lodging House with all the rage of an ornery bull. Spot was close behind him. He watched the taller boy bang around the beds, kicking bricks near the floor, his eyes wild and intense.

"Where is it?" he nearly growled.

"Where's what?"

He got no answer and Jack dropped to the floor. He pulled out a wall brick and a grin slid onto his face. He fell back onto his haunches, concealing something.

Spot saw the flash of metal and remembered a poster. Bold print in bright colors and thick letters: "God didn't make all men equal, Colonel Colt did."

"'Member that money Pulitzer gave me?" Jack grinned. "Still had it after I came back. Figured I'd be a real cowboy anyhow without goin' to Santa Fe."

He kissed the .45 and Spot could have sworn that he heard a hiss as the cold metal touched his lips.

"What's it for?" Spot queried even though he could guess.

Jack gave him a leveling look. "Protection."

He hooked the gun between his rope belt and his pants, putting the muzzle through a belt loop.

Spot smirked. Jack was acting rather crazy but he figured that times called for crazy. Being rational and even-minded would get them nowhere. They didn't know who or when the killer was going to strike and their only suspect was killed. Maybe a Colt was what they needed.

The door banged open. The sound of hoarse panting crashed into his ears and the smell of rain followed it.

"What's wrong, Dave?" Jack queried, cocking a brow and turning his body to conceal the gun.

Spot turned to see the other boy clutching the doorjamb with hands whiter than bone. His blue eyes were wide and frightened.

"Mush!" he sputtered. "It's Mush."

--

Where was Blink? Where in all the world was Blink?

Mush felt everything go fuzzy. Like he touched anything around him, it would be soft to the touch. But he couldn't. His hands were pinned down onto the ground and he could feel the dust and dirt on the ground cutting the sides of them.

The face of the man above him was unclear to his fuzzy vision but he could _feel_ the man. As if he _knew_.

He was four years old. His mama had been singing to him, stroking his hair and calling him her lamb. His father was smoking and sitting in a chair, his legs up on the table as he told him how happy he was.

The door banged open.

A man he had never seen before grabbed his mama by her hair and dragged her over to his father. Words he had never heard were screamed. The man reeked of liquor and the words he screamed seemed to singe the air and leave a burning residue. He threw his mama into his papa and rounded on him. One sentence stood out in the entire fuzzy scene.

"Half-nigger bastard."

His papa lunged at him and there was a flash of metal. He dropped to the ground. His mama was crying. She ran across the room to put her arms around him. Through her sobs she told him that he'd be alright.

He was left covered in her blood when the man was done.

"For a halfling, you're not bad," the man purred at him, rolling the knife between big hands.

He leaned down and pressed his putrid body on him. He whimpered and ran. The man's laughter tinkled after him.

Mush screamed. The man was pressing against him as he had so many years ago. The man who probably didn't even recognize him anymore was going to kill him. He was going to rape him and kill him and leave his body dangling somewhere.

So he screamed. As he screamed, he felt something shatter inside of him. Glasses, a cupboard of plates he had toppled over when he was three, dinner plates from Tibby's he had dropped, mirrors smashed by accident. It all broke within him.

His throat was raw and sore but he kept screaming. The memory became clearer. The murders, the man, the running. The laughter following him down the street.

A harsh blow came to his face. The scream became a whimper.

"Pretty one," the voice whispered. "I don't want to hurt you but you made me."

He kept his hands firmly on Mush's, pinning them tightly to the ground. His body, putrid with stink and booze, pressed down hard on his lower half.

The man smiled and it came into the light. Craggly and gray on the cheeks, like pepper got stuck to his face. A smile slid under his face. It was oily. His teeth were long and yellow, like some animal. He lowered his scraggly head and started to tear at Mush's clothes with his teeth.

Where was Blink? He must have heard the scream. The primal scream that left him feeling empty. He felt no need to tell him to let him up, it'd be no use.

The man's hands moved and wrapped around his throat.

"Such smooth skin," he murmured.

The hands tightened. A small whimpered squeezed forth.

"Don't fear, pretty one," he whispered. "Don't fear anything."

Then everything went black.

--

Jack followed David down the dizzying New York streets, slick with the now stopped rain. The Colt bang against his hipbone as he ran but he kept going. His breath came out in ragged gasps. Spot was somewhere behind them, running along at his own pace.

"Where's Blink?"

"Went…find…help," David gasped between pants.

He stopped at an alley. Jack came up quickly behind him, allowing his hands to linger on his shoulders for just a moment.

A brute of a man with dark hair was leaning down on someone. He saw the bare, taupe legs with the downy coating of black hairs and the brown boots. The legs were very still.

Jack felt rage build within him when he saw what was happening. He gripped the Colt in one hand.

"David!" Blink came thundering down the street, arms waving. His face was bright red from exertion. His good eye widened when he saw Jack with the gun.

Spot came up next and the four of them stood in silence for a moment.

Everything else happened too quickly.

The man sat up, his soaked gray jacket visible as a wide target. Jack drew the gun and fired. He fired again.

The sound was deafening. David cupped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. There was a slam and, when he opened his eyes, the man was on the ground.

"Mush!" Blink shoved past them and ran down the alley. He reminded David of some kind of animal, untamed and terrified. He shoved the man out of the way.

The others slowly followed; Jack clasped the gun as if he didn't know what had happened. What he had just done.

Mush was too pale. His big, dreamy brown eyes were open and cloudy.

"He's dead," Spot murmured from behind. "Little Mushy's dead."

Blink fell to his knees. "No, he's not! Mush!"

He shook him angrily, almost manically.

"Mush! Mush!"

The rain began to fall once more. It beaded on the gun still clutched in Jack's soaked, frozen hand and dribbled off. It soaked Spot's hair down flat and diluted the blood from the man.

David knelt near Blink and looked at the prone boy before them. His throat was mottled with yellow and violet bruises and his hands were cut up from the rocks and dust on the ground.

There was a metallic clang and the gun dropped to the ground. Jack fell in next to them and leaned forward to shut his eyes. The lids went down so perfectly, if his fingers hadn't been doing it, it would have looked natural.

"I'm sorry, Kid." Jack put an arm around the blonde boy. "I know he was your best friend."

"No…" Blink whispered. "No, he wasn't. He was my brother."

Tears rolled down his face, the patch he wore darkening from the water. David found himself putting an arm around him as well. A warm, wiry body pressed from behind and he knew that Spot had joined in. They knelt there, clutching each other. No one questioned it. The rain continued to fall.

A rattling sound filled the air followed by a gasp. Mush's eyes flew open. His mouth went slack and his chest moved up and down rapidly, trying to gain breath.

"Mush!" Blink exclaimed, breaking from the hold. "You're…"

"I'm alive?" he asked, dazed.

Blink hugged him tightly and Mush began to cough.

"Sorry." He sounded almost sheepish.

He turned his soaked head to the side and saw the guy.

"Wow," he whispered. "He's dead?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah. I…yeah. He's dead."

"He killed my mama and papa," Mush said quietly. "Back when I was little. Just broke in and killed 'em."

For some reason, David recalled Gypsy's words at the meeting in the basement. The time seemed eons ago but it was only two nights.

"_The nine of swords. Past memories not yet put to rest."_

A shiver crawled up his spine. This had to have been what he meant.

"Mush," Spot said, his voice strangely quiet and resigned. "We thought you was dead."

He sounded clogged and choky. It dawned on David: Spot had been crying.

Mush rubbed his throat, wincing slightly. "Me too."

Blink laughed uneasily and ruffled his curls.

"Let's go," Jack said suddenly. "We're all gonna die from colds and then all this'll be in vain."

With Jack and Blink's help, Mush was pulled to his feet.

"What're we gonna do 'bout him?" he asked, his little boy's voice sounding raw and scratchy.

"We're gonna leave him for the dogs to eat," Spot snapped. "Serves 'im right. How many did he kill?"

The mention made David's heart ache and he remembered Les. A hand weighted his shoulder, rubbing it slightly. It could only have been Jack.

"You know," Mush croaked as they left. "I'm really hungry. Can we get something to eat?"

--

That night, David awoke to a tapping at the window. No longer did fear grip him. His only dreams had been of the primal sense. Dreams of what happened last night, playing over and over in his mind's eye.

He knew who it was going to be.

Jack's face was stricken and sad. In his hand, the gun glinted evilly in the moonlight.

"You _can_ use the door, you know," he joked when he slid the pane up.

Jack shoved his way in, not saying a word. He threw himself down on David's bed and heaved a sigh. It rented the air loudly and made Sarah stir but not awaken.

"What's wrong?" he asked, joviality gone and replaced with mounting concern.

He sat up, still holding the gun. He gestured wildly with it as he spoke.

"What's wrong?" he hissed. "What's wrong is that I just _shot_ the guy, Dave! I _killed_ him. Now we don't know where Les or any of them are; dead or alive."

He put a hand on his face, rubbing the curve of his cheekbone lightly with his thumb. Jack nuzzled slightly into it, letting the gun drop onto his lap.

"You had to," he said evenly. "Or else Mush would be dead."

He chuckled dryly. "I'm surprised he ain't after this afternoon. Did you see how much he ate at Tibby's?"

"I know. I had to pay for it."

They laughed in low voices, keeping them at scarcely above a whisper. Jack's face grew grave again.

"I killed someone, Dave."

"You had to."

"But now…"

Brazenly, he leaned forward and brushed his lips against his.

"Don't worry," he said quietly even though his heart ached. He was never going to see his brother again. Even if Les were alive, he didn't know where he was or what shape he was in.

Jack picked the gun back up before quietly rising to place it on the bureau. David looked at it. It was a cowboy's gun, he saw. Trust Jack to have one.

He reached the bed again and rested his burning forehead on David's shoulder. He put his arms around him and rubbed his hands up and down his back slowly. He had never seen Jack so upset. His mannerisms were completely different. He seemed somehow smaller.

Jack lifted his head up slightly and pressed his lips to David's. They were going slowly, deliberately. They made love in the bed once more, whispering each other's names as to not wake the entire building.

Afterwards, Jack stroked his curls as they lay curled in bed. Before sleep finally took him, David rolled over to make their sleeping position seem natural and less romantic. He fell asleep, his head pillowed on his hands.

Jack stayed awake, staring up at the ceiling. He pulled his longjohns up onto his hips, leaving his chest bare. He let one hand fall onto it, drumming lightly with his fingers.

He once dreamt of a man coming into windows and slitting people's throats. David dreamed of corpses and murders. Mush told them about the dream with the buzzing blue room. The killer in his dreams had a face dripping with yellowed teeth behind his comedy mask.

The man who nearly killed Mush and killed all of the others. His stomach knotted. He needed to see Gypsy, he decided. He needed to see his fate in his battered cards.

Jack rolled over and lightly kissed David's temple, the curls tickling his face. He stroked the part where he kissed lightly with his free hand. He let his head drop onto the pillow and sleep slowly took him.

It was a dreamless sleep and he awoke feeling strangely at peace.

He nudged David lightly.

"God help the outcasts," he murmured.

"What?"

He opened his eyes and blinked sleepily at him.

"Hmm?"

"You just said 'God help the outcasts.'"

A surprised look came across his pale, Polish face.

"I did?" a faraway look appeared on his face. "I…I said that a few days ago. When Snoddy first went missing. But…I think it means something else."

"What'd ya mean by somethin' else?"

David put a hand on Jack's chin and smiled lightly.

"I'm not sure. We didn't get a lot of help from Him, I think. We had to do it ourselves."

"With some help from Colonel Colt." Jack found himself smiling.

"A little, yes." David was smiling back.

Jack rose and pulled his longjohns all the way back on, slipping his arms through the sleeves.

"But you're right. We ain't gonna get help from nobody. Ashby tried to help and he ended up dead."

"He's dead?"

Jack put a hand over his mouth as if to say 'Oops' but continued.

"We gotta do it on our own. We're outcasts, Davey. We're street rats. And we gotta do things on our own. You're right about that. And I ain't sad 'bout killin' him no more. I think it had to be the right thing to do."

David nodded and rose. Sarah was still sleeping soundly so Jack felt safe in putting his arms around his waist.

"Let's go, Davey."

"Yeah…let's go. I think we need to finally start selling before my family's in the poorhouse."

Jack threw back his head in laughter.

"Yeah. And then where would I stay?"

He hit him playfully. "Come on, Cowboy."

Jack hit him back but then turned. A smile sprang onto his face and he rushed to the window.

"Dave, look!"

The other boy joined him and they stared out onto the bright, New York streets. For the first time in a week, Jack felt hope bloom in his chest.

It had stopped raining.

--

**Ending notes: **Oh, my God, I've finished a chaptered fic. I don't think I've done that since Shoot. xD I adore this story, not going to lie. I wanted to try something new and I must say that I'm pleased with the results.

And, by popular demand (and because I love him so), Gypsy will be popping up in different fics. In fact, there's an idea for a one-shot in my head that he is involved in with Specs and Dutchy…but I digress. I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it.


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